JioPhone may not withstand consumer expectations: JP Morgan

According to the new report by JP Morgan, there are some challenges related to the feasibility of JioPhone and being attractively priced to induce habit-changing consumption.

The report said that "In all likelihood, if the consumer can afford to pay at least Rs 153/month for three years, she/ he is quite likely a smartphone user well before this three-year period runs out."

"The JioPhone may not withstand consumer expectations and wouldn't halt potential feature phone users' plans to own a smartphone during a three-year lock in period, the brokerage firm added.

"Based on information provided by RJio and feedback from various sources, we believe there could be some challenges in propagating the JioPhone (as the terms & conditions currently stand)...Some of the challenges relate to feasibility, while others relate to the product being attractive and attractively-priced enough to induce habit-changing consumption," it further added.

However, the report said that incumbent telcos may also tie up with handset vendors to bring to the market their versions of the VoLTE feature phone to counter JioPhone

Meanwhile, India's third largest telecom operator Idea Cellular is also planning to launch a new phone in the market. The phone is said to be priced starting at Rs. 2,500.

Himanshu Kapania, the Managing Director of Idea Cellular Limited, has recently said that, "The practical solution that we are working on is to work with the handset industry and work with them to be able to bring down cost of handsets by bringing down the bill of material, so that the gap of the announced price of Jio feature phone versus a smartphone can be brought down to reasonable levels."

Ever since Reliance Jio has announced its operations in the country it is making headlines for many reasons . But this time the new offering by the company the JioPhone is getting lot of attention as some believe it will help to increase market share of feature smartphones and some say that this will not make any impact on the market but we have to wait for some time to get the clear picture.