Jio, the Mukesh Ambani-led telecommunications behemoth, has teamed up with industry heavyweights Qualcomm and Microsoft to introduce inexpensive laptops dubbed "JioBook." Reliance According to a Reuters story, Jio would introduce a low-cost laptop with an inbuilt 4G sim card priced at Rs 15,000 to build on the popularity of its low-cost "JioPhone" in India's extremely competitive market.
According to sources cited in a Reuters story, the laptop will be made accessible to enterprise users like government agencies and educational institutions starting this month, with a consumer launch likely within the next three months. One of the persons with intimate knowledge of the situation told Reuters that it will be as large as JioPhone. Since its late-year launch, the gadget has held a fifth of the market in India, according to Counterpoint, and has been the best-selling sub-$100 smartphone there. A JioPhone with 5G capability will soon be available on the market.
Flex, a local contract manufacturer, will construct the JioBook, and Jio expects to sell "hundreds of thousands" of them by the end of March.
Jio's JioOS operating system will be used on the laptop, and programmes may be downloaded via the JioStore.
Jio is promoting the laptop as an alternative to tablets for corporate workers who work outside of the office.
As a result of Jio's collaboration with Qualcomm and Microsoft, the former will power the processing chips built using Arm Ltd. technology while the maker of the Windows OS will support specific applications.
In total, 14.8 million PCs were supplied to India last year, with HP, Dell, and Lenovo leading the way, according to the research firm IDC. The release of the JioBook will, in Tarun Pathak's estimation from Counterpoint, raise the addressable laptop market sector overall by at least 15 per cent.
When Jio introduced affordable 4G data plans and free voice services in 2016, as well as the 4G smartphone at a price of just $81 in 2020, it is credited with upsetting the world's second-largest mobile market. In 2020, Jio raised approximately $22 billion from international investors including KKR & Co Inc and Silver Lake.
(With inputs from Reuters)
