In their latest attempt to grab the Indian market share, the Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani led Reliance Jio on Monday announced to launch a 4G feature phone that’s supposed to be priced at 999 ($12.19). 

Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd will start beta trials for their first million Jio Bharat phones from July 7. The Telecommunications unit of Reliance Industries Ltd issued a statement saying, “The phone will be offered with unlimited voice calls and 14 GB of data for Rs 123 for a month.

The launch of a cheap 4G internet-enabled phone is another disruptive move by Ambani after he deployed a similar cut-throat strategy to lay his foundation into the retail business in 2006 and telecoms in 2016, and removing competition until Reliance emerged as the market leader in both the sectors.

The new JioBharat V2 4G phone is priced 20% lower than the estimated average selling price of similar feature phones in India. 

A statement issued by Akash Ambani, chairman at Reliance Jio, stated that 250 million mobile users remain trapped in the 2G era, unable to access the basic features of the internet at a time when the world is adopting 5G technologies. Reliance Jio is set to invest $25 billion to roll out 5G services all over India by December 2023.