At this point, it's quite clear that Reliance Jio intends to launch a feature phone soon[1]. The company's annual general meeting[2] (AGM) is scheduled for Friday and it's as good a day as any for the phone's launch. The Lyf Jio feature phone[3] is rumoured to be Internet-enabled and the phone's price is expected to be anywhere between Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,500. At that price it is sure to appeal to feature phone buyers, which is a significant chunk of the population in India[4]. The Jio feature phone is being manufactured by Intex[5] and Reliance Jio[6] may subsidise it to keep it under the Rs. 1,500 price point.
That's not all, Gadgets 360 has some exclusive details related to the phone for you. Several developers have told Gadgets 360 that the Jio feature phone will run KaiOS[7], which is based on a fork of Mozilla’s Firefox OS[8]. This means that you could see apps running HTML5. Sources have confirmed that the feature phone will have an app store and that Jio has approached developers seeking apps for the platform. Gadgets 360 understands that Jio is considering enabling the ability to remotely enable apps and services on a user’s Lyf Jio feature phone, of which it reportedly wants to sell over 20 crore units[9].
We also have in-depth analysis that should help you understand why Reliance Jio's entry into the feature phone market makes a lot of sense[10]. This is the piece to read if you want to understand why the company is stepping into that market and the state of the feature phone market in India, which is a lot better than what most...