Mumbai: Six years after it first unveiled a 4G-enabled feature phone, Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio on Monday announced a fresh play in the segment by launching the Jio Bharat V2 phone, priced at Rs. 999. The beta trial for the first 1 million of these low-price internet-enabled mobile devices will start on July 7, it said.
The company launched a new operating system — Jio Bharat platform — which other phone brands, such as Karbonn, will also adopt to build their phones, the company said.
Stressing that 250 million feature phone users across the country represent a wide digital divide, the company said Jio Bharat V2 phones will provide digital freedom in the form of high-quality, affordable data to economically weaker segments of the population.
Jio also announced a 30 per cent cheaper bundled monthly plan of Rs. 123, against the minimum Rs. 179 monthly plans offered by other operators. It will be offering 14 GB free data with the plan, seven times more than the 2GB data offered by its competitors. The annual plan would cost Rs. 1,234. Both plans include unlimited calling.
Jio said the upcoming trials will ensure the scalability of the platform and processes for upgrading millions of feature phone users; trials will be carried out across 6,500 tehsils.
The Jio Bharat V2 phone has a 1.77-inch QVGA TFT display and also offers a removable 1,000 mAh battery. It will be locked to the Jio network and support UPI payments through JioPay. It will also have access to JioCinema for movies, videos, and sports entertainment, and the JioSaavn service, which includes more than 80 million songs in multiple languages, the company said.
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