India’s richest person launches a phone at a price of $ 12‎

Billionaire Mukesh Ambani – India’s richest person – on Monday unveiled an Internet-enabled phone starting at 999 rupees ($12) as the oil-to-retail conglomerate seeks to attract more users of budget devices from competitors.

Reliance Jio Infocomm, India’s No. 1 wireless carrier, will start the soft launch of the first million Jio Bharat phones starting from July 7, according to a statement from Reliance’s communications unit. Industries” is backed by a package of unlimited voice calls and 14 GB of data for 123 rupees per month. It is possible to watch videos from the “JioCinema” application of the “Reliance” company, and to make payments over the phone.

Launching a cheap internet-enabled phone is another breakthrough move by Ambani, who adopted a similar strategy when he entered retail in 2006 and telecom in 2016, avoiding competition until Reliance emerged as the market leader in both sectors. According to “Bloomberg” ..

Reliance Jio Chairman Akash Ambani said in the statement that there are 250 million mobile phone users in India who are still “trapped” in the era of 2G networks, unable to take advantage of the basic features of the internet at a time the world adopts fifth generation technology. The phone is also expected to enhance “Reliance” plans to pay for entertainment through the broadcast service

Reliance Jio plans to invest $25 billion to roll out 5G services across India by December 2023.

The new Jio phone is priced 20% below the estimated average selling price of feature phones in India, according to Jefferies India equity analysts Akshat Agarwal and Anchor Pant, who have estimated up to 22 million users of the budget devices. They will be seduced by it

Switching to this cheaper option could cause the wireless operator Bharati Arital, the country’s No. 2 operator, to lose about 11 million subscribers annually.

Bharti shares fell as much as 2.9% in early trading on Tuesday, posting the biggest intraday loss since June 1.