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Reliance Jio will launch a $184 (15,000 Indian rupee) budget laptop with a built-in 4G SIM card, aiming to replicate the success of its low-cost JioPhone in India’s highly price-sensitive market, two sources told Reuters.
The Mukesh Ambani-led conglomerate has tied up with global giants Qualcomm and Microsoft for the JioBook, with the former powering its computing chips based on technology from Arm Ltd and the Windows OS maker providing support for some apps.
Jio, India’s largest telecom operator with more than 420 million customers, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The laptop will be available to corporate customers such as schools and government institutions starting this month, with a consumer launch expected within the next three months, the sources said. As with the JioPhone, a 5G-enabled version will follow.
“It will be as big as the JioPhone,” one source with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
Since its launch late last year, the phone has been India’s best-selling sub-$100 smartphone, accounting for a fifth of the market over the past three quarters, according to Counterpoint.
JioBook to be manufactured locally by contract manufacturer Flex with Jio aiming to sell ‘hundreds of thousands’
units by March, one of the sources said.
Total PC shipments in India reached 14.8 million units last year, led by HP, Dell and Lenovo, according to research firm IDC.
The launch of the JioBook will expand the overall addressable notebook market segment by at least 15%, said Counterpoint analyst Tarun Pathak.
The laptop will run Jio’s own Jio OS and apps can be downloaded from the JioStore. Jio also offers a laptop as an alternative to tablets for corporate employees outside the office.
Jio, which raised around $22 billion in 2020 from global investors such as KKR & Co Inc and Silver Lake, is credited with disrupting the world’s top. 2 when it launched cheap 4G data plans and free voice services in 2016, and later a 4G smartphone priced at just $81.
