Jio is pushing hard for its upcoming 5G network in India. On Reliance AGM on Wednesday Jio announced that it is creating its own 5G technology from scratch. But without 5G enabled smartphone it is impossible to grow a 5G user base in India. That’s why Jio is partnering with Google to develop an Android-based operating system that will feature in entry-level smartphones.
The announcement comes after Google decided to invest $4.5 Billion to Jio for a 7.7% stake. “Google and Reliance Jio are partnering to build a value-engineered Android-based smartphone operating system. Through this partnership, we can accelerate the national mission of putting a smart device in the hands of every Indian,” Ambani said.
Ambani said that “Even though we have sold over 100 million Jio phones, there are many feature phone users who are waiting to upgrade to a conventional smartphone, if only it were somehow more affordable. So we have decided to address this challenge.” Ambani said that Jio wanted to make India “2G mukt” (2G free). To achieve this, Jio wanted to provide affordable “4G or even 5G” smartphones running an Android-based operating system.