India’s Reliance Jio to roll out 100 million low-cost phones by December: Business Standard

BENGALURU (Reuters) – Reliance Industries Ltd’s telecom unit is looking to outsource the manufacturing of over 100 million low-cost smartphones that will be built on Google’s Android platform, India’s Business Standard newspaper reported, citing sources.

The phones, which will be bundled with data packs, could be launched in December 2020 or early next year, the newspaper reported on Wednesday. (https://bit.ly/33pZpP5)

Reliance, India’s most highly-valued company, in July said Alphabet Inc’s Google will invest $4.5 billion in its digital unit.

Billionaire Mukesh Ambani, who controls Reliance, in July said that Google would build an Android operating system (OS) to power a low-cost “4G or even 5G” smartphone that Reliance would design.

Reliance has sold nearly 33% of its digital arm, Jio Platforms, to raise 1.52 trillion rupees ($20.22 billion) and has won the backing of global financial and tech investors including, Facebook Inc , Intel and Qualcomm .

(Reporting by Nallur Sethuraman in Bengaluru; Editing by Amy Caren Daniel)