For 1099 rupees ($13), two new 4G-enabled handsets have been announced in the market by Jio Platforms, the digital arm of Reliance. For this sum of money, the handsets will offer live TV, music and video streaming as well as host the ability to make digital payments.

The JioBharat V3 and JioBharat V4 are the follow-up products to last year's JioBharat: 1.77-inch displays, 48MB of RAM, 128MB of internal storage (expandable up to 128GB), and 1,000mAh batteries. A company spokesperson told TechCrunch that Jio has itself manufactured the phones.
These specs are, in many ways, decidedly entry-level. What isn't the issue here, however is raw power.

Instead, these phones represent Jio Platform's strategic push to catch the next 100 million users in India -- those for whom even a $50 smartphone remains out of reach. Hundreds of millions of Indians are still locked on 2G network.

Jio Platforms, which counts Google and Meta among its investors, already leads India's biggest telecom network, serving close to 490 million paying subscribers. The push with feature phones might help the firm make deeper inroads into the world's most populous country.

The handsets-sold online at stores, JioMart and Amazon-have access to JioTV, JioCinema and JioSavvn. JioTV provides Jio subscribers with free access to more than 450 channels. It has exclusive tie-ups with NBCUniversal and Warner Bros and also has digital rights to stream the much-talked-about IPL cricket tournaments.

These versions, JioBharat V3 and JioBharat V4, will work only on the Jio network. The voice and data monthly plan on JioBharat costs 123 rupees or $1.5 with 14GB data usage.