NEW DELHI, Oct 3 (Reuters) – Reliance Jio will quickly launch a laptop computer priced at simply 15,000 rupees ($184) – one of many most cost-effective on supply in India, aiming to duplicate the success of its low-cost cellphone, stated two sources with direct data of the matter.
Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance is understood for disrupting companies with cut-throat worth choices. Jio, its telecoms unit, has been credited with upending the world’s no. 2 cell market with low cost 4G information plans and free voice providers in 2016. Final yr, it adopted that up with its 4G JioPhone that prices $81.
The laptop computer, to be known as JioBook and which will likely be embedded with a 4G sim card, will likely be accessible to clients resembling colleges and authorities institutes from this month whereas a client launch is anticipated inside the subsequent three months, the sources stated. As with the JioPhone, a 5G-enabled model is about to observe.
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“This will likely be as huge as JioPhone,” one of many sources instructed Reuters.
The sources declined to be recognized because the launch plans haven’t been made public. Jio, India’s largest telecom provider with greater than 420 million clients, didn’t reply to a request for remark.
The JioPhone has been India’s top-selling smartphone priced below $100, accounting for a fifth of that market section over the past three quarters, based on Counterpoint Analysis. The section accounts for 9% of the nation’s smartphone gross sales.
JioBook will run on the JioOS working system, the sources stated, including that a few of Microsoft’s apps may also be accessible. It can use Qualcomm (QCOM.O) chips based mostly on expertise from Arm Ltd, they added.
The laptop computer will compete with a restricted variety of choices in that worth vary from Acer (2353.TW), Lenovo (0992.HK) and Indian agency Lava.
But it surely may face some resistance in a rustic the place laptops working Microsoft Home windows dominate.
“Challenges for the adoption will likely be consumer consciousness…Additionally non-Home windows (working system) is a letdown too,” Counterpoint analyst Tarun Pathak stated.
At the moment, HP (HPQ.N) and Dell dominate laptop computer gross sales in India – a market of 14 million unit gross sales yearly which may broaden one other 15% with the addition of JioBook, Pathak estimates.
The JioBook will likely be produced domestically by contract producer Flex with Jio aiming to promote “lots of of hundreds” of models by March, one of many sources stated.
Jio, which can also be pitching the laptop computer as a substitute for tablets for out-of-office company workers, raised round $22 billion from international buyers resembling KKR & Co Inc (KKR.N) and Silver Lake in 2020.
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Reporting by Munsif Vengattil in New Delhi; Extra reporting by Aditya Kalra; Modifying by Kirsten Donovan and Edwina Gibbs
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