The JioPhone Next, the much-awaited smartphone designed by Google and India’s Jio Platforms to tap hundreds of millions of users in the world’s second-largest internet market, won’t launch on Friday, the Indian technology giant said Thursday midnight. In a statement issued just now, Jio Platforms said it has been testing the smartphone with a “limited set of users for further refinement” and is “actively working to make it available more widely” around the Diwali festival is scheduled for early November.
The JioPhone Next smartphone, unveiled in June this year, was scheduled to launch on Friday. Neither of the firms had given any indication that they may have to postpone the launch in recent days. The Indian firm, which operates the largest telecom network with over 400 million subscribers, blamed global semiconductor shortages for the launch delay. It said it expects the additional two months “will” mitigate that. “The companies remain committed to their vision of opening up new possibilities for millions of Indians, especially those who will experience the internet for the first time,” the Indian firm said in a press statement.
Powered by an “extremely optimized Android” mobile operating system, the JioPhone Next phone is marketed to be an “ultra-affordable 4G smartphone” to tap the roughly 300 million users in India who are still on slower networks. The two firms have said that they plan to launch the smartphone in other markets as well eventually. At an event in June, the two firms said the JioPhone Next would feature a “fast, high-quality camera” that will support HDR and be protected by the latest Android releases and security updates. The two firms have said that it will also ship with a range of features, including reading Aloud and Translate Now, that will work with any text on the phone screen, including web pages, apps, messages, and even photos.
Analysts have said in recent weeks that the JioPhone Next — whose price and tech specifications are yet to be revealed — could disrupt the Indian smartphone market — the world’s second-largest — and help the telecom network further solidify its dominance in the country. “At present, there are 430 million smartphone users, 115 million JioPhone users [Jio’s “smart” featurephone], and 320 million feature phones (2G) users in India. We believe smartphone users with devices priced above $100 are unlikely to opt for a sub $100 device,” analysts at Jefferies wrote in a report to clients this week. “That leaves 25% of smartphone users, i.e., 105 million smartphones, 115 million JioPhone users, and 320 million feature phone users, as the addressable market for JioPhone Next. Assuming a replacement cycle of 2 years for smartphones and three years for JioPhone/featurephones, the addressable market for JioPhone Next could be 200m devices annually.”
Jio Platforms operates several businesses, including telecom giant Jio Infocomm, which competes with Airtel and Vodafone Idea; and e-commerce firm JioMart, which competes with Tata-owned BigBasket, SoftBank-backed Grofers, and Amazon and Walmart’s Flipkart. The smartphone is the latest collaboration between the two firms. Last year, Google invested $4.5 billion in Jio Platforms, where it first announced the plans to develop cheap smartphones with the Indian telecom operator. Facebook and scores of other firms have also bought stakes in the Indian firm.
