Reliance Jio will soon be launching a laptop at just ₹15,000. The low cost laptop is the telecom giant’s efforts to replicate its Jio Phone success in India, sources told news agency Reuters.
In 2016, Reliance Jio disrupted the telecom sector with its cut-throat price offers for Jio, including the 4G data plans and voice service. Last year, Reliance Jio unveiled the JioPhone which costs $81 ( ₹6,623).
According to reports, the laptop will be called JioBook and will be embedded with a 4G SIM card. It will be available to customers like schools and government institutions from this month. A consumer launch is expected within the next three months.
The JioBook will be produced locally by contract manufacturer Flex. Reliance Jio had raised around $22 billion from global investors such as KKR & Co Inc and Silver Lake in 2020, Reuters report stated.
A source in the company while requesting anonymity told Reuters that the JioBook will be as big as the JioPhone. Reliance Jio has more than 42 crore customers. The laptop will run on the JioOS operating system and some of the Microsoft apps will also be available. It will be powered by Qualcomm chips based on technology from Arm Limited.
The biggest challenge to JioBook is competing against the giants like Acer, Lenovo, HP and Dell. The laptops in India run predominantly on Microsoft Windows. According to experts, challenges for the adoption will be user awareness
The laptop will compete with a limited number of offerings in that price range from Acer, Lenovo and Indian firm Lava.
But it could face some resistance in a country where laptops running Microsoft Windows dominate.
Reliance Jio has already announced it will launch standalone 5G services in select metro cities by Diwali. The company now headed by Mukesh Ambani’s elder son Akash Ambani said it will expand the 5G services across India by December 2023.
The company is also set to launch 5G Jiophone which is codenamed ‘Ganga’ and will be priced between ₹8,000 and ₹12,000.
(With Reuters inputs)
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