9 ms·

Jio’s phone will run Android and cost about $54

100 points by finphil 6y ago

ramshanker 6y ago
Just to add perspective, just 2 weeks back they reduced the Optical Fibre Connected 40mbps plan to $6.36/month, with generous 3.3TB monthly limit. You can get 1gbps on same line with appropriate charges. Soon after leading incumbent Airtel matched their plan with $7.95/month. Mobile & Broadband is really PICKING UP OVER HERE, all thanks to Jio.
Aperocky 6y ago
Can anyone with context tell me how far 4000 rupees go in India? It feels cheap enough (like a fire device) but also that did not turn out hot.
- motabhai 6y ago
  Give anything at a cheap price and it will be a hit here in India. Jio will mostly bundled this with their sim card sales. Everybody will then buy it. It will come preloaded with all their apps. Therefore, Jio users will use it. Then all non-Jio users will be forced to use it. Thanks to Jio, bandwidth prices are insanely low here. That's the only good thing that has come due to their existence. A few years ago, they gave away calls and internet access totally free for a year if you download all their 10 apps from the play store. Each of their apps got 50-100 million downloads. Which forced competitors to reduce prices drastically, and since then it is been an insanely competitive market here. There is a reason Facebook and Google have invested in Jio. It's going to get into the advertising business in 1-2 years.
- ramshanker 6y ago
  A roadside restaurant on highways (called dhaba) should server Full stomach meal for usually INR 50. So that Rs.4000 is 80 Meals. Another reference, Minimum wages for Unskilled Labour is INR 400/day. [1] https://clc.gov.in/clc/node/645 https://clc.gov.in/clc/node/645
  - neophyt3 6y ago
    are u living in 2009 year.. for 50 bucks u get 2 plain naan on road side dhaba in Maharashtra
- lolsal 6y ago
  For reference, a teacher that I know in Maharashtra is paid about $9000 USD yearly, or ~630,000 rupees.
  - pratik661 6y ago
    That actually sounds like a lot (R52.5k/month). What type of teacher is this? College lecturer? Private tuition teacher? Government teacher? The average seems to be R20k
motabhai 6y ago
God I hate Jio. They want to be the combined version of Amazon, Facebook, and Google in India. The sad thing is they have deep ties with the current Govt, meaning no anti-monopoly action against them will ever be initiated against them. They are completely against privacy and have don't have any ethical values at all. They block all VPN's, 'progressive' sites like Wikipedia, Reddit randomly, and blatantly copy other competing apps (whatsapp and zoom were the biggest thing they copied). They are 100% going to get into the ads and tracking business in 1.5 years. They are the ISP, the chat app, cloud storage app, the browser, the entertainment/media app of many people here. They literally know more about you than Google does.
- hannofcart 6y ago
  > They want to be the combined version of Amazon, Facebook, and Google in India. I think you're underestimating their ambitions.
  - trendy2020 6y ago
    It is sadly the next Maharaja's (Reliance) and the major share holders are the modern East India company (Silicon Valley)... History does repeat
- pkphilip 6y ago
  Well said. Reliance is the bane of India. It is going to drag India down to the pits and make India into a banana republic of sorts
  - bzb5 6y ago
    And what’s India currently?
    - manishsharan 6y ago
      World's largest democracy,unlike China. Among the largest economies in the world, nowhere as large as China but it will get there. Overall Free press and judiciary, unlike China. A consititution that guarantees rights for all people, unlike China. Minorities are free to worship , unlike China which is mass raping Uighurs. India is a very imperfect work in progress.
pcr0 6y ago
Jio has produced cheaper phones for ~$20. What's different according to the article is that the upcoming smartphone will run Android, unlike Jio's current phones which run KaiOS. I'm skeptical that they'll be able to run Android tolerably on a device that cheap.
- blocked_again 6y ago
  Technically they can subsidize the device by hoping to make money from the user data in future.
haunter 6y ago
I'm curious about the specs. Back in 2018 you could already buy a China Mobile A3S from Taobao/Aliexpress for ~$60. That was the state telephone company's budget Android phone with a Snapdragon 425! Which is not really powerful but still way better than the usual Mediatek SoC you would find in cheap phones like this. A good overview here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2we4OemMIs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2we4OemMIs I had this phone in my hand and it was nicely built so wonder Jio can release something better than this (given the price range)
blueblisters 6y ago
This is arguably a huge gamble on ARPUs of this market segment. Telecom ARPUs are already extremely low because of Jio's predatory pricing (which was incidentally called "penetrative" pricing by India's antitrust regulator [1]), which negatively impacts service quality and bandwidth. It's a great growth hack for startups who are looking for DAU/MAU farming but it is unlikely to translate into reach cash flows unless you also have paying customers with deeper pockets. Interesting to watch this unfold. [1] http://competitionlawblog.kluwercompetitionlaw.com/2019/06/18/penetrative-pricing-understanding-its-evolution-and-rationale-under-the-indian-competition-law-regime-through-the-revolutionary-jio-case http://competitionlawblog.kluwercompetitionlaw.com/2019/06/1...
MangoCoffee 6y ago
>Indian telecom giant Jio has started working with at least two domestic manufacturers to secure capacity for 150–200 million smartphones, according to Bloomberg. this will help India to build up its manufacturing abilities. Apple/Foxconn setting up shop in India and Taiwanese OEM like Wistron moving to India as well. Chinese aging population and rising wages is giving India a chance to replace China as world's manufacturer. the only thing that is holding back India is India's govrt.
- brij0102 6y ago
  There are environmental considerations in manufacturing these, as well as need for immense amount of clean water which is already in short supply in India; the devil is always in the details ...
clownFace7 6y ago
Poo in Loo
LockAndLol 6y ago
Untangling themselves from China is a good step, but turning their cheek to Facebook to create their "super app"... well, seems like they're going to imitate the US and China when it comes to privacy and ads.
bambam24 6y ago
Please stop sharing business insiders articles. Its paid and I have no intention to pay
- Shared404 6y ago
  From the FAQ [0] Are paywalls ok? It's ok to post stories from sites with paywalls that have workarounds. In comments, it's ok to ask how to read an article and to help other users do so. But please don't post complaints about paywalls. Those are off topic. More here. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html Edit: https://outline.com/syCKYe https://outline.com/syCKYe
- vaccinator 6y ago
  They let me read it without paying... might be because of ublock origin or some other addon though...
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- trendy2020 6y ago
  Just install this Firefox or Chrome https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome
abrowne 6y ago
The Nokia 1 I'm typing this on runs Android (Go edition) (shipped with 8; upgraded to 9 then 10) and cost $75 in the US a year ago, with free shipping from Amazon, so seems doable.
sbmthakur 6y ago
It's not just the phone. They will sell it with some other service(maybe be JioMart?), which will make the deal attractive.
newyorker2 6y ago
Suspicious barrage of new accounts on this post. Hmm, especially top level comments.
tieguy2k 6y ago
Came here to read about J Lo's phone.
2Gkashmiri 6y ago
Over a fucking year has passed and Kashmir STILL has no 4G internet access. Inclusivity and digital economy my ass
wtmt 6y ago
If you worry about privacy in a country with no data protection law in place, you should stay far away from anything Jio. I’ve said this before here: when Jio was announced, the company said that “data is the new oil”, indicating that what oil was to Reliance’s growth and power would be what data would be for the company from then. The company also said it would do deep packet inspection of traffic to learn more about the people on its network (you can find news reports of this online). Jio has also fought against encryption of communications. While a cheap(er) phone may sound like a great idea in a country where many people are struggling (and more so with poorer policy decisions in the last few years), this is a deal with the devil. People like saying that switching away from Gmail is pointless because most of the emails you send would still go to Gmail (I don’t entirely agree with this, but that’s for another post). I see it being the same with Jio very soon. It will have all your data and habits because the people you interact with are deep in its ecosystem. Beware, and stay safe!
tomcam 6y ago
Am I missing something here? My local Kroger’s market has perfectly good android 9.0 smart phones for $30 or so. I bought one just out of curiosity and it performs pretty well, with the screen measuring over 6 inches, decent battery life, and pretty snappy performance.

100 points by finphil 6y ago

Just to add perspective, just 2 weeks back they reduced the Optical Fibre Connected 40mbps plan to $6.36/month, with generous 3.3TB monthly limit. You can get 1gbps on same line with appropriate charges. Soon after leading incumbent Airtel matched their plan with $7.95/month. Mobile & Broadband is really PICKING UP OVER HERE, all thanks to Jio.

Aperocky 6y ago

Can anyone with context tell me how far 4000 rupees go in India? It feels cheap enough (like a fire device) but also that did not turn out hot.

motabhai 6y ago
Give anything at a cheap price and it will be a hit here in India. Jio will mostly bundled this with their sim card sales. Everybody will then buy it. It will come preloaded with all their apps. Therefore, Jio users will use it. Then all non-Jio users will be forced to use it. Thanks to Jio, bandwidth prices are insanely low here. That's the only good thing that has come due to their existence. A few years ago, they gave away calls and internet access totally free for a year if you download all their 10 apps from the play store. Each of their apps got 50-100 million downloads. Which forced competitors to reduce prices drastically, and since then it is been an insanely competitive market here. There is a reason Facebook and Google have invested in Jio. It's going to get into the advertising business in 1-2 years.
ramshanker 6y ago
A roadside restaurant on highways (called dhaba) should server Full stomach meal for usually INR 50. So that Rs.4000 is 80 Meals. Another reference, Minimum wages for Unskilled Labour is INR 400/day. [1] https://clc.gov.in/clc/node/645 https://clc.gov.in/clc/node/645
- neophyt3 6y ago
  are u living in 2009 year.. for 50 bucks u get 2 plain naan on road side dhaba in Maharashtra
lolsal 6y ago
For reference, a teacher that I know in Maharashtra is paid about $9000 USD yearly, or ~630,000 rupees.
- pratik661 6y ago
  That actually sounds like a lot (R52.5k/month). What type of teacher is this? College lecturer? Private tuition teacher? Government teacher? The average seems to be R20k

motabhai 6y ago

God I hate Jio. They want to be the combined version of Amazon, Facebook, and Google in India. The sad thing is they have deep ties with the current Govt, meaning no anti-monopoly action against them will ever be initiated against them. They are completely against privacy and have don't have any ethical values at all. They block all VPN's, 'progressive' sites like Wikipedia, Reddit randomly, and blatantly copy other competing apps (whatsapp and zoom were the biggest thing they copied). They are 100% going to get into the ads and tracking business in 1.5 years. They are the ISP, the chat app, cloud storage app, the browser, the entertainment/media app of many people here. They literally know more about you than Google does.

hannofcart 6y ago
> They want to be the combined version of Amazon, Facebook, and Google in India. I think you're underestimating their ambitions.
- trendy2020 6y ago
  It is sadly the next Maharaja's (Reliance) and the major share holders are the modern East India company (Silicon Valley)... History does repeat
pkphilip 6y ago
Well said. Reliance is the bane of India. It is going to drag India down to the pits and make India into a banana republic of sorts
- bzb5 6y ago
  And what’s India currently?
  - manishsharan 6y ago
    World's largest democracy,unlike China. Among the largest economies in the world, nowhere as large as China but it will get there. Overall Free press and judiciary, unlike China. A consititution that guarantees rights for all people, unlike China. Minorities are free to worship , unlike China which is mass raping Uighurs. India is a very imperfect work in progress.

pcr0 6y ago

Jio has produced cheaper phones for ~$20. What's different according to the article is that the upcoming smartphone will run Android, unlike Jio's current phones which run KaiOS. I'm skeptical that they'll be able to run Android tolerably on a device that cheap.

blocked_again 6y ago
Technically they can subsidize the device by hoping to make money from the user data in future.

haunter 6y ago

I'm curious about the specs. Back in 2018 you could already buy a China Mobile A3S from Taobao/Aliexpress for ~$60. That was the state telephone company's budget Android phone with a Snapdragon 425! Which is not really powerful but still way better than the usual Mediatek SoC you would find in cheap phones like this. A good overview here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2we4OemMIs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2we4OemMIs I had this phone in my hand and it was nicely built so wonder Jio can release something better than this (given the price range)

blueblisters 6y ago

This is arguably a huge gamble on ARPUs of this market segment. Telecom ARPUs are already extremely low because of Jio's predatory pricing (which was incidentally called "penetrative" pricing by India's antitrust regulator [1]), which negatively impacts service quality and bandwidth. It's a great growth hack for startups who are looking for DAU/MAU farming but it is unlikely to translate into reach cash flows unless you also have paying customers with deeper pockets. Interesting to watch this unfold. [1] http://competitionlawblog.kluwercompetitionlaw.com/2019/06/18/penetrative-pricing-understanding-its-evolution-and-rationale-under-the-indian-competition-law-regime-through-the-revolutionary-jio-case http://competitionlawblog.kluwercompetitionlaw.com/2019/06/1...

MangoCoffee 6y ago

>Indian telecom giant Jio has started working with at least two domestic manufacturers to secure capacity for 150–200 million smartphones, according to Bloomberg. this will help India to build up its manufacturing abilities. Apple/Foxconn setting up shop in India and Taiwanese OEM like Wistron moving to India as well. Chinese aging population and rising wages is giving India a chance to replace China as world's manufacturer. the only thing that is holding back India is India's govrt.

brij0102 6y ago
There are environmental considerations in manufacturing these, as well as need for immense amount of clean water which is already in short supply in India; the devil is always in the details ...

clownFace7 6y ago

Poo in Loo

LockAndLol 6y ago

Untangling themselves from China is a good step, but turning their cheek to Facebook to create their "super app"... well, seems like they're going to imitate the US and China when it comes to privacy and ads.

bambam24 6y ago

Please stop sharing business insiders articles. Its paid and I have no intention to pay

Shared404 6y ago
From the FAQ [0] Are paywalls ok? It's ok to post stories from sites with paywalls that have workarounds. In comments, it's ok to ask how to read an article and to help other users do so. But please don't post complaints about paywalls. Those are off topic. More here. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html Edit: https://outline.com/syCKYe https://outline.com/syCKYe
vaccinator 6y ago
They let me read it without paying... might be because of ublock origin or some other addon though...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
trendy2020 6y ago
Just install this Firefox or Chrome https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome

abrowne 6y ago

The Nokia 1 I'm typing this on runs Android (Go edition) (shipped with 8; upgraded to 9 then 10) and cost $75 in the US a year ago, with free shipping from Amazon, so seems doable.

sbmthakur 6y ago

It's not just the phone. They will sell it with some other service(maybe be JioMart?), which will make the deal attractive.

newyorker2 6y ago

Suspicious barrage of new accounts on this post. Hmm, especially top level comments.

tieguy2k 6y ago

Came here to read about J Lo's phone.

2Gkashmiri 6y ago

Over a fucking year has passed and Kashmir STILL has no 4G internet access. Inclusivity and digital economy my ass

wtmt 6y ago

If you worry about privacy in a country with no data protection law in place, you should stay far away from anything Jio. I’ve said this before here: when Jio was announced, the company said that “data is the new oil”, indicating that what oil was to Reliance’s growth and power would be what data would be for the company from then. The company also said it would do deep packet inspection of traffic to learn more about the people on its network (you can find news reports of this online). Jio has also fought against encryption of communications. While a cheap(er) phone may sound like a great idea in a country where many people are struggling (and more so with poorer policy decisions in the last few years), this is a deal with the devil. People like saying that switching away from Gmail is pointless because most of the emails you send would still go to Gmail (I don’t entirely agree with this, but that’s for another post). I see it being the same with Jio very soon. It will have all your data and habits because the people you interact with are deep in its ecosystem. Beware, and stay safe!

tomcam 6y ago

Am I missing something here? My local Kroger’s market has perfectly good android 9.0 smart phones for $30 or so. I bought one just out of curiosity and it performs pretty well, with the screen measuring over 6 inches, decent battery life, and pretty snappy performance.