JioPhone grabs 80% market share in sub-Rs 1,500 segment, claims Reliance Retail

Reliance Retail Tuesday claimed that JioPhones have 80 per cent market share in sub-Rs 1,500 mobile phone segment.

"Out of every 10 phones sold in the sub-Rs 1,500 price-range, 8 are JioPhones," Reliance Retail said in a statement.

It added that the number of voice commands used on a JioPhone surpasses that on a smartphone by five times.

Announcing launch of mobile messaging app Whatsapp on JioPhone, Reliance retail said JioPhone users spend more time using the internet and applications than even smartphone users.

"We will be providing Whatsapp, the most used chat application in the world, on all JioPhones starting today. Jio wants to thank the Facebook and WhatsApp team for making this happen," Akash Ambani, Director, Reliance Retail and Reliance Jio Infocomm, said.

JioPhone users can already access apps like JioTV, JioCinema, JioMusic, JioChat, Google Maps and Facebook.

Whatsapp built a new version of its private messaging app for JioPhone, running the Jio-KaiOS, the statement said.

A joint statement by Reliance Retail and Whatsapp on Monday said that the mobile messaging app will be available across all JioPhone by September 20 as they will update software in phases.