JioPhone has been the talk of the town ever since Reliance announced it a few weeks back. It is supposed to be a smartphone but in a candy bar form factor, which is still quite popular in India. Like any other Jio product, the JioPhone too got such an overwhelming response from the interested buyers that its pre-booking had to be stopped. Now that a few days have passed since then, Jio has announced when the JioPhone deliveries will start.
Reliance opened pre-bookings for the JioPhone on August 24th but they were closed within a couple of days. During that time, it was revealed that about 6 million pre-bookings were made via all the online and offline channels. The response was so immense that the pre-bookings crossed the 3 million mark within a couple of hours.
After the pre-bookings were closed, the company allowed people to register their interest to know when the pre-bookings will resume. More than 10 million people registered their interest since then.
While there were millions more who wanted to pre-book JioPhone but couldn’t, the people who had successfully pre-booked one didn’t exactly know when they will be getting their devices delivered. To end the confusion, you need to know that the JioPhone will start shipping from September 21, coinciding with Navratri.
Jio had announced to have reached 125 million users but the speed of customer acquisition has reduced than what it earlier was. JioPhone will act as a bridge for Jio to reach the untouched customer base that still depends on feature phones and bring them aboard. While other 4G enabled phones start from around Rs. 4,000, JioPhone has been priced at Rs. 1500 which will also be refunded after a period of three years.
This will allow the users in tier-2, tier-3, and rural areas to experience the 4G connectivity even on a familiar looking phone and most importantly, invest in Jio ecosystem. During the initial announcement of the JioPhone, the company said that it plans to sell a hundred million devices this year and another 100 million next year too. Jio plans to ship 5 million units of the JioPhone every week to meet the demand.
