Jio launches Jio Bharat Phone platform in India to turn feature phones into smartphones: Check details

Reliance Jio today introduced Jio Bharat platform in India. The newly introduced Jio Bharat platform aims to enable existing 250 million feature phone users in India, who cannot access the Internet on their smartphones, to access 4G connectivity without changing their devices.

Jio says that its newly announced Jio Bharat platform leverages device and network capabilities to deliver internet-enabled services on entry-level phone, that is, a feature phone. The company also says that the Jio Bharat powered phones will provide ‘features and digital capabilities that allow different segments of society to achieve more by doing more’.

Jio Bharat is essentially an OS for mobiles phones that will give a 4G upgrade to the 2G-enabled feature phones along with access to a bunch of other features.

“Jio Bharat is being launched with the objective of empowering every Indian with the power of digital services, especially those who cannot afford a smartphone,” the company wrote in a press release today.

Jio Bharat mobile platform availability

As far as availability is concerned, Jio says that the beta trial for first one million Jio Bharat-powered feature phones begins from July 7, 2023, which will be carried out across 6,500 tehsils in India. Jio says that the gradual rollout is being done to ensure scalability of platform and processes.

Furthermore, the company said that besides Reliance Retail, other mobile phone brands will also adopt Jio Bharat platform starting with Karbonn.

Jio Bharat V2 4G feature phone

Specifications and features
In addition to introducing its Jio Bharat platform, the company also introduced a Jio Bharat powered feature phone dubbed as Jio Bharat V2 4G in India. This new phone comes with a 1.77-inch QVGA TFT display and a 1,000mAh battery. It has a 0.3MP camera at the back and it comes with a bunch of other features, which includes a loudspeaker, a torch, support for an SD card up to 128GB storage space and a 3.5mm jack.

In addition to this, the Jio Bharat V2 feature phone comes with a bunch of interesting features including HD voice calling, 4G internet browsing, wireless FM radio and support for 22 Indian languages.

In addition to these features, the Jio Bharat V2 also offers unlimited calls within the country, UPI payments via JioPay, access to JioCinema and JioSaavn apps.

Pricing and data

Jio says that Jio Bharat powered Jio Bharat V2 is priced at Rs 999, which the company says is the cheapest Internet-enabled phone in the country. Jio is offering a monthly plan worth Rs 123 to Jio Bharat users. This plan offers unlimited voice calls and 14 GB data at 0.5GB data per day for a span of 28 days. The company is also offering an annual plan worth Rs 1,234 that offers unlimited calls with a total of 168GB of data at 0.5GB of data a day.