JioPhone impact: Idea may launch Rs 2500 smartphone soon

Key Highlights

• Idea may be in talks with handset makers for launching cheap handsets.
• The smartphone by Idea Cellular may be priced at Rs 2500.
• The phone may be a dual SIM supporting 2G and 4G technology.

Idea Cellular, the third largest telecom operator in the country is reportedly in talks with phone makers to come up with ‘cheap handsets,’ media reports said on Monday. This comes after Reliance Jio announced the launch of its 4G VoLTE enabled feature phones on July 21.

"The practical solution that we are working on is to work with the handset industry and work with them to be able to bring down cost of handsets by bringing down the bill of material, so that the gap of the announced price of Jio feature phone versus a smart-phone can be brought down to reasonable levels," Himanshu Kapania, the Managing Director of Aditya Birla Company was quoted by News Nation report.

Though JioPhone is a feature phone with many smartphone like features, Idea’s new phones may be a cheaper priced smartphone.

JioPhone is expected to be a single SIM phone while Idea’s smartphone is speculated to be a dual SIM phone which would support 2G and 4G network technologies.

The report said the cost of the smartphone may be as low as Rs 2500.

At the 40th annual general meet of Reliance Industries Ltd, Managing Director Mukesh Ambani said that the JioPhone will be available in September for a refundable security deposit of Rs 1500.

The security deposit will be held by the company for a period of three years.

Ambani said they were trying to make available at least five million JioPhones every week. “We are targeting to have 5 million JioPhones available every week.”

Zeebiz had earlier reported that the newly launched JioPhone will force other phone makers to up their game and upgrade the current feature phones that mostly run on 2G technology to 4G enabled phones.

“There will be rapid acceleration in Q3 and Q4 of this year for adoption of 4G feature phones,” Neil Shah, Research Director at Counterpoint Research told Zeebiz on July 21.

Airtel also said that it will be looking to partner with phone makers for 4G enabled feature phones, a report by Live Mint said last week.

Also Read:

• Can Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio force rural India to do what other telecom companies couldn't?
• JioPhone: After telecom companies, Reliance will now force feature phone makers to up their game
• Reliance's 'free' JioPhone shakes up cheap end of India's billion-strong market