Reliance Jio has reportedly hit a bit of a production snag when it comes to the Rs 0 JioPhone. The company’s apparently shifting production of the 4G-ready feature phone to India as a result.
The Reliance JioPhone has been manufactured in China so far, but the factory being used has apparently been facing supply issues. The facility can make 300000 to 400000 units per day at the most. This isn’t enough for Jio to achieve its sales target of 200 million handsets by December 2018.
It seems the fulfillment team in charge of getting the JioPhone manufactured did not deliver on their promise. A source told Livemint that the company has now engaged an unknown vendor in Chennai to produce its feature phone.
The first phase of the JioPhone’s rollout saw 6 million units getting shipped out. The second phase is set to cross that by vending around 10 million JioPhones, going by the number of people who have expressed interest to Jio. The production process has already begun as per the publication, so availability shouldn’t be too far off.
Reliance had actually stated that it was planning to shift base to India by the last quarter of the year, so the news of it moving to Chennai aren’t a complete surprise. The brand is currently in the middle of sending potential buyers text messages asking them to make a payment of Rs 1500 to collect their JioPhone.
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Hopefully, the JioPhone’s India manufacturing will speed things up. The device’s first round of sales happened all the way back in August and hasn’t repeated since.