MUMBAI, India (CU)_According to sources, Reliance Jio is planning to offer a $184 (INR 15,000) laptop with an inbuilt 4G sim card in an effort to repeat the success that it has had with its low-cost JioPhone in India’s price-sensitive market. Accordingly, the Mukesh Ambani-led corporation has joined forces with global titans Qualcomm and Microsoft for the JioBook, with the former providing its computer circuits based on Arm Ltd technology and the latter offering support for certain apps.
According to sources, the laptop will be accessible to corporate clients such as schools and government institutions beginning this month, with a rollout to the general public expected within the following three months. Similar to the JioPhone, a 5G-enabled variant will be released. Jio, the largest telecom provider in India with over 420 million consumers, did not reply quickly to a request for comment.
According to sources familiar with the subject “This will be as big as JioPhone.” According to Counterpoint, since its release at the end of the previous year, the device has been the best-selling sub-$100 smartphone in India, holding a fifth of the market over the course of the previous three quarters. According to Tarun Pathak, Counterpoint analyst, the introduction of the JioBook would increase the addressable laptop market segment by at least 15 percent.
The laptop will run Jio’s own operating system, JioOS, and applications may be downloaded through JioStore. Jio is also promoting the laptop as a replacement to tablets for business employees who work remotely. According to a familiar source, the JioBook will be manufactured domestically by Flex, and Jio plans to sell hundreds of thousands of devices by March. IDC analysis indicates that total PC shipments in India were 14.8 million units in 2021, topped by HP, Dell, and Lenovo.
