Reliance Jio moves phone production to India after supply glitches in China
NEWDELHI: Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd is shifting production of 4G phones to India to overcome supply related issues at its Chinese vendor’s facility.
Jio has engaged an undisclosed vendor in Chennai to make its flagship phone after capacity bottlenecks at the unit in China where the initial batch of 6 million devices were produced, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said. “In the second phase, we have received expressions of interest for 10 million devices and have started manufacturing in Chennai,” one of the two people said, adding that the firm is reaching out to prospective buyers through text messages wherein they are asked to make a payment of ₹1,500 to collect their devices.
In July, Ambani had said production of Jio phones in India would start in the last quarter of the year.
The second person aware of Jio’s plans said the capacity constraints at the Chinese vendor’s facility may result in Jio missing its sales target.
“The manufacturing capacity in China is 300,000-400,000 devices per day maximum. The fulfilment team responsible to get the devices manufactured has not been able to deliver. The target to achieve sales of 200 million phones by December 2018 seems unlikely,” this person said.
A detailed questionnaire sent to Jio seeking a response to Mint’s queries on Friday remained unanswered till press time.
Jio has taken the telecom world by storm—first through its free services, followed by ultra-cheap tariffs and then via Jiophone, which the firm marketed as an “effectively free” 4G phone for a refundable deposit of ₹1,500 a month.
An user gets free voice, messaging services and unlimited data for ₹153 a month.
At the time of the launch, RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani had announced that the company was “targeting to have 5 million Jio phones available every week”.
As of October end, Reliance Jio has reached a subscriber base of 145.96 million users, according to Telecom Regulatory Authority of India data.