Mumbai: Reliance Industries MD Mukesh Ambani announced a smart phone “Jio – Phone Next” at 44^th Annual General Meeting on Thursday. The new Android smartphone has come as a result of the partnership between Reliance Jio and Google that was announced last year and was revealed by both Mukesh Ambani and Google CEO Sundar Pichai.

‘Jio – Phone Next’ offers an optimized Android experience on top of an entry-level hardware to attract the people. Reliance Industries MD Mukesh Ambani in his address at the 44^th AGM said the Jio – Phone Next also offers Google Play store access and features including voice assistant, automatic read-aloud of screen text, and language translation.

India still has nearly 300 million mobile users who are unable to escape from inefficient and exorbitant 2G services, he said. Sundar and I had talked about Google and Jio co-developing a next-generation, feature-rich, but extremely affordable smartphone, because even a basic 4G smartphone remains unaffordable for these users.

He announced launch date of ‘Jio – Phone Next’ on September 10 on the occasion of Ganesh Chaturthi. The price of the phone was not announced yet, only that it will be the most affordable smartphone not just in India, but globally.

The launch of the new Jio phone could give a tough fight to companies including Xiaomi, Samsung, and Realme that are offering a list of models in the affordable market segment.