Reliance Jio may launch smartphones in sub-Rs 5000 price category, claims report – Times of India

Mukesh Ambani-owned RIL is working on launching affordable smartphones in the country that would be priced around Rs 4,000, claims a report by Bloomberg.
The report claims that the company has asked local suppliers to increase their production capacity to make approximately 200 million units in the span of next two years.
The report cites people who are familiar with the matter and states that the phones will be low-cost and will come with Jio branding.
These handsets would run on Google’s custom OS that the company announced at its 43rd Annual General Meeting.
To recall, Jio announced that it has partnered with Google to introduce an Android-based operating system for affordable smartphones soon.
Back then, it was also announced that Jio Platforms and Google have also got into a commercial agreement to jointly develop an entry level affordable smartphone that will offer optimised Android operating system and the Play Store.
“JioPhone continues to be the world’s most affordable 4G phone…we have sold 100 million JioPhone handsets till date, there are many feature phone users who are waiting to upgrade to a conventional smartphone, if only it was somehow more affordable,” said Ambani at the AGM. The company claims that there are 350 million feature phone users still in India.
“We believe we can design an entry level 4G or even a 5G smartphone for a fraction of its current cost. But to power such a value engineered smartphone we also need an equally value engineered smartphone operating system. Google and Jio are partnering to build an Android-based smartphone operating system,” he added.