Reliance Industries Ltd's telecom unit is looking to outsource the manufacturing of over 100 million low-cost smartphones that will be built on Google's Android platform, India's Business Standard newspaper reported, citing sources. Reliance, India's most highly-valued company, in July said Alphabet Inc's Google will invest $4.5 billion in its digital unit.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani, who controls Reliance, in July said that Google would build an Android operating system (OS) to power a low-cost "4G or even 5G" smartphone that Reliance would design.
Reliance has sold nearly 33% of its digital arm, Jio Platforms, to raise 1.52 trillion rupees ($20.22 billion) and has won the backing of global financial and tech investors including, Facebook Inc, Intel and Qualcomm.
Reliance, which sold a 7.73 per cent equity stake in Jio Platforms to Google for Rs 33,737 crore in July, had announced that it was working with the company to design a low-cost 4G smartphone on Android. A spokesperson for Reliance Jio declined to comment on the matter.
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India still has over 400 million 2G subscribers, which are with Vodafone Idea (now Vi), BSNL, and Bharti Airtel. Reliance just announced an aggressive target to reach 500 million customers, even as it currently has 398 million subscribers. To help 2G customers who have to buy a new phone to upgrade to 4G, the company had earlier introduced 4G feature phones, to make it affordable for them to make the switch. These phones, which came bundled with data, were available at just over Rs 1,000.
While the company succeeded in getting over 110 million customers through feature phones, its net increase in subscribers month-on-month has slowed in recent months, from as high as 9-10 million (around 40 per cent were feature phone users) to 3-4 million. One key reason is that assuming a year replacement cycle, many of the 4G feature users are already looking to upgrade to a smartphone.
With average quality 4G LTE smartphones still at around Rs 4,000 plus, Jio’s plan is to break this price barrier and make it affordable for pure 2G as well as 4G smartphone users looking for an upgrade. It is this market which they plan to tap with Google’s Android. Business Standard