Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) made a disruptive move in the mobile devices market with the launch of JioPhone, which is popularly known as "India ka smartphone", at the company's 40th annual general meeting last month. The free smart feature phone will be available on a first come, first serve basis just like the free Jio SIM cards last year.
It is natural that buyers will be met with high demand for the phone, and getting hands on just one phone would be nothing short of a miracle. But RIL is making necessary arrangements for enterprise and businesses to get JioPhone in bulk through a separate order system.
Read: Lesser known facts about the free 4G VoLTE-JioPhone
The company hasn't confirmed the bulk order system yet, or how it will manage to fulfill wholesale orders with just 5 million JioPhones every week. But there is dedicated registration section for businesses, who wish to get more than one JioPhone.
Mandatory pre-bookings for JioPhone will commence from August 24 and the availability is not due until early September. To ensure that interested buyers do not miss out on pre-booking the device, Jio has setup a "Keep me posted" option on its official website to notify buyers when the pre-booking opens for the phone.
The landing page when you click on "Keep me posted" on the homepage banner asks you to register as an individual. But if you are looking for a bulk order, select "Business" and fill out the details such as contact name, company name, pincode, PAN or GSTN number, contact email, phone number and finally the number of devices required.
Enterprise request can be filled out for both JioPhone and JioFi devices for 1-5 units, 6-25 units, 26-50 units or 50 and above. When submit your interest, a message will appear thanking you and an email will be sent to your email address, which reads "Greetings from Jio! Thank you for your interest. We have received your details and our team will contact you shortly. Thank You, Team Jio."
Reliance Jio clearly has the intention to sell its JioPhone for businesses and it is likely a separate pre-booking option will be given to enterprises later this month. While the phone is effectively free, JioPhone buyers must deposit a refundable fee of Rs. 1,500, which will be refunded after returning the used phone in three years.
With JioPhone, RIL is aiming to digitally enable majority of feature phone users, which are estimated at 50 crore out of 78 crore total mobile phone users. Reliance Jio is committed to making India truly digital by offering connectivity, data affordability and device affordability.
We will know more about the pre-booking structure for business and individuals on August 24. Stay tuned.
