Ambani Unveils JioPhone 2 With A Bigger Screen, Qwerty Keyboard

Mukesh Ambani unveiled an upgraded version of JioPhone that is now the best-selling feature phone in India.

JioPhone 2 will come with a horizontal screen and a qwerty keyboard, Ambani said at the annual general meeting of his flagship Reliance Industries Ltd. It will be available at an introductory price of Rs 2,999 from August 15.

“The first real impact I see is in the feature phone market. The devices definitely -- it is a very credible attempt because they come with a very large user base,” Sanchit Gogia, chief executive officer at Greyhound Research, told BloombergQuint. And the price they are getting the phone at could be the biggest impact.”

Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. has touched 25 million JioPhone users within a year of launching the device, Ambani said. The company targets 100 million users.

The phone, a runaway success, now has the highest 36 percent share in the feature phone market as of March, according to Counterpoint Research. While smartphones adoption is growing in India, feature phones still dominate the market. According to a report by IDC, feature phones contributed about 57 percent of the 288 million mobile phone shipments in 2017.

The 4G-enabled JioPhone will start offering YouTube, WhatsApp and Facebook services from August 15. Ambani also announced a scheme allowing any existing JioPhone users to exchange it with JioPhone 2 for Rs 501 starting July 21.