Jio slashes JioPhone price to Rs 699 under Diwali Offer

Reliance Jio has upped the ante in its fight for domination of the Indian telecom market, reducing the price of its cheapest ‘semi-smartphone’ to just Rs 699 for the current Diwali season. Unlike its earlier offer of Rs 500 for the JioPhone, the Diwali offer comes without the need to exchange any old phone. Moreover, […]

Soaring Jiophone sales could start hurting incumbents – Credit Suisse

Jiophone sales are rising fast and could start affecting the growth rates of rival telecom companies once the churn effect of fleeing Aircel subscribers gets over, analysts from financial services firm Credit Suisse said. Analysts Sunil Tirumala and Viral Shah said trends indicated that the Jiophone is contributing about 7 mln out of the 8-9 […]

Jiophone decimates Samsung, itel; Powers LYF to No.1 in January

LYF, the mobile phone brand that was launched along with Reliance Jio, emerged as India’s No.1 mobile phone brand by shipments in January, market researcher CMR said. In January, LYF had a share of 27% in the overall mobile phone market in India, while Samsung was a distant second with just 12.1%. This was primarily […]

JioPhone booking starts at 5:30 PM today at Reliance Jio stores

The Mukesh Ambani-led telecom operator is likely to start prebooking for its JioPhone device at 5:30 PM today, according to sources. Booking can done in four ways — using the company’s website Jio.com, using the MyJio app and by going to a either a Jio Store or any multi-brand store that sells the device. Customers […]

No plans to launch JioPhone rival – Bharti Airtel

Bharti Airtel, India’s largest telecom provider by revenue, said it has no intention of launching a rival phone similar to the super-cheap semi-smartphone launched by rival Reliance Jio. Asked if the company needed to come out with a similar, affordable handset to compete with Jio, Gopal Vittal, CEO of Bharti Airtel said his company did […]

Is the JioPhone really free?

The latest entrant to India’s telecom market, Reliance Jio, has announced an unprecedented offer — a 4G enabled phone with support for apps and videocalling for free. According to Mukesh Ambani, customers do not have to pay anything for the phone as the cost of the phone will be returned to the buyer when he […]

Reliance Jio to lose over half of its subscribers by the month-end – CyberMedia Research

Even as some brokerages are predicting that Reliance Jio will manage to carry over 80% or more of its subscribers when it starts charging for its services at the end of this month, CyberMedia Research said it sees 55-60% of existing connections getting abandoned. Jio is estimated to have 105-110 mln connections at present, though […]

ViVo, Oppo, Xiaomi need cheaper smartphone models to grow in India in 2017

China’s LOVE brands — Lenovo, Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi — will have to introduce cheaper models in 2017 to continue their strong growth in India, CyberMedia Research said in a report. The reason? India’s replacement and upgrade market — Rs 10,000-13,000 — will no longer be the center of action in 2017 and to continue their growth, […]

Reliance Jio’s 1000-rupee phone likely to work only on its 4G network; feature

The market is abuzz with rumors of the impending launch of a 1000-rupee ‘feature phone’ by Reliance Jio, but comments by Airtel CEO Gopal Vittal suggests that the Mukesh Ambani firm will not be able to launch such a phone without providing a big subsidies. However, doing so would in turn require locking the device […]