JioBharat V3, JioBharat V4 4G Featurephones Launched at ₹1,099: IMC 2024

Reliance Jio has unveiled two new 4G featurephone models, the JioBharat V3 and JioBharat V4, to kick off the 2024 Indian Mobile Congress trade show in New Delhi. With this launch, the company is continuing to encourage cost-sensitive featurephone users to upgrade from 2G to 4G connectivity, including Jio services. The two devices will go on sale “shortly” at offline retail locations across the country as well as JioMart and Amazon. 

Both phones are priced at ₹1,099 with prepaid voice and data service. Buyers will be able to recharge for ₹123 per month, which will get them unlimited voice calls and 14GB of 4G data. The company claims 40 percent cost savings compared to other operators. 

The JioBharat V3 and JioBharat V4 are both described as stylish and aspirational devices. Both will have removable 1,000mAh batteries and support expandable storage up to 128GB. Both phones also support wireless FM radio and have LED torches as well as loudspeakers. They have 1.77-inch QVGA (320x240-pixel) screens and VGA resolution rear cameras. Both phones will work with 23 Indian languages.

Buyers will get access to JioTV, with 455 live TV channels including news and sports; JioCinema and JioSaavn for streaming entertainment, sports and music; JioPay for UPI transaction support including soundbox functionality for merchants; JioPhoto for cloud storage; and a messaging platform called JioChat.

The JioBharat V2 is Jio’s current entry-level model and is priced at ₹999. It has a 1.7-inch 240x320-pixel screen, VGA rear camera, and 4GB of storage. It also has a microSD card slot for up to 128GB of additional storage, a micro-USB port, a 3.5mm audio jack, and Bluetooth 4.1.

Separately, Jio Infocomm Chairman Akash Ambani spoke at the opening of the IMC 2024 trade show, highlighting India’s rise to the top spot globally in terms of data use, and the growing influence of the UPI digital payments platform. He also stated that Jio is committed to democratising access to AI, with an affordable and accessible national AI infrastructure as well as establishing domestic data centres.