JioPhone Production to continue - Few improvements might be added

Few days back, there was a report in Factor Daily claiming that Jio is looking into stopping the production of its JioPhone and is evaluating options to produce a android based phone. The report also quoted the sources who attributed the production halt to KaiOS (forked version of Firefox OS), which does not support a lot of apps.

However, a Reliance Jio spokesperson, in a statement disproved the report and said that next pre-booking date will be announced soon. “JioPhone, ‘India ka smartphone’ is committed to fulfilling the country’s digital vision. Jio welcomes the initial 6 million Indians who are moving to digital life with the JioPhone and will soon announce the next JioPhone booking date.

Reliance JioPhone runs KaiOS, and it comes with Jio’s suite of apps like MyJio, JioMusic, JioTV, JioCinema, etc. Of course, more apps can be downloaded from JioStore. Notably, JioPhone doesn’t ship with popular social media and messaging apps like Facebook and WhatsApp. However, we’ve learnt that the company plans to roll out support for Facebook and WhatsApp soon, though timeline is unclear. Reliance Jio is looking to develop and app ecosystem for JioPhone, keeping in mind tier 2 and tier 3 users. We could see addition of utility apps like bus booking apps as well as entertainment apps. Details are unclear at this moment.

Reliance Jio is currently finishing up the first batch of deliveries of JioPhone. Reliance JioPhone pre-bookings started August 24, and deliveries began September 15. The company says it has received close to six million booking so far, and about 10 million expressions of interests from across the country. At the launch, Reliance Jio had said that it is targeting to have five million JioPhones available every week.