What’s the cheapest 5G smartphone in India? You will at least shell out upwards of INR 10,000/- to get your hands on a 5G phone in the country. However, Qualcomm along with Reliance Jio are working to introduce a new 5G phone that will be under INR 10,000/-. Reports suggest it could be priced at just INR 8,000/- (or $99) with a launch date set to be towards the end of 2024.
Reliance Jio worked with Google to introduce 4G-powered JioPhone earlier last year although it didn’t receive a response as expected. On the other hand, pairing with Qualcomm would make 5G phones affordable. It could open up floodgates to overhaul a bulk of more than 250 million 2G/3G phones in India that could transition to 4G/5G tech. Moving away from 2G/3G to 4G/5G would bring an insane bump in the speeds and connectivity to the Indian users as telecom providers are trying to capture more ground with 4G and 5G tech.
Talking about this affordable 5G phone, it could support standalone (SA) 2Rx capability which is a solution for Qualcomm’s solution to bring 5G SA networks on budget phones. The solution relies on two antennas instead of four which will help cut back on the costs proving it instrumental to achieve such an optimistic pricing.
We aren’t aware of any specifications that will make it to these entry-level 5G phones. Moving to 5G networks allows for 5x faster data speeds when compared to 4G LTE.
The move will benefit Reliance Jio tremendously given the fact that it has a majority of 4G-5G users while both Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel have 2G users who could upgrade to 4G/5G in the future. The Qualcomm and Reliance Jio duo will have to make their entry-level 5G phone lucrative by introducing features like better processors and higher RAM to capture more ground.
The chipmaker giant has been working towards bringing down the cost of chips to power affordable 5G phones. With the current partnership in place, Qualcomm and Reliance Jio should be able to tap into the 250-300 million 2G feature phone users in India and spike the penetration rate.
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