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 copy the success of its low-cost telephone, mentioned 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 knowledge 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, can be embedded with a 4G sim card. Out there to prospects similar to faculties and authorities institutes from this month, the laptop computer will possible go on sale to basic shoppers inside the subsequent three months, the sources mentioned. As with the JioPhone, a 5G-enabled model is ready to comply with.
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“This can 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 greatest telecom provider with greater than 420 million prospects, 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 during the last three quarters, in keeping with Counterpoint Analysis. The section accounts for 9% of the nation’s smartphone gross sales.
JioBook will run on the JioOS working system, the sources mentioned, including that a few of Microsoft’s (MSFT.O) apps may even be out there. It is going to use Qualcomm (QCOM.O) chips primarily based 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.
However it may face some resistance in a rustic the place laptops working Microsoft Home windows dominate.
“Challenges for the adoption can be person consciousness…Additionally non-Home windows (working system) is a letdown too,” Counterpoint analyst Tarun Pathak mentioned.
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 develop one other 15% with the addition of JioBook, Pathak estimates.
The JioBook can be produced regionally by contract producer Flex with Jio aiming to promote “lots of of 1000’s” of models by March, one of many sources mentioned.
Jio, which can be pitching the laptop computer as an alternative choice to tablets for out-of-office company staff, raised round $22 billion from international traders similar to KKR & Co Inc (KKR.N) and Silver Lake in 2020.
(This story refiles to repair third para for readability)
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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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