At the 43rd annual general meeting (AGM), Reliance Jio announced that Jio Platforms and Google will jointly develop an entry-level affordable 4G/5G smartphone with optimizations to the Android operating system and the Play Store. The 5G smartphone will be priced at a fraction of its current cost. “The Jio-Google partnership is determined to make India 2G-mukt,” said Mukesh Ambani.
Jio also announced that Google will invest Rs. 33,737 crore in Jio Platforms, which will build on Jio’s and Google’s existing efforts to expand the benefits of digitization across the length and breadth of India, beyond the current 500+ million Internet users in the country.
In a statement Jio said:
Together we are excited to rethink, from the ground up, how millions of users in India can become owners of smartphones. This effort will unlock new opportunities, further power the vibrant ecosystem of applications and push innovation to drive growth for the new Indian economy.
Google said:
Our mission with Android has always been to bring the power of computing to everyone, and we’ve been humbled by the way Indians have embraced Android over recent years. We think the time is right to increase our commitment to India significantly, in collaboration with local companies, and partnership with Jio is the first step. We want to work with Jio and other leaders in the local ecosystem to ensure that smartphones—together with the apps and services in the Play Store—are within reach for many more Indians across the country. And we believe the pace of Indian innovation means that the experiences we create for India can ultimately be expanded to the rest of the world.