The ultra-affordable Indian JioPhone Next, a collaboration with Google, has been delayed by two months

Indian telco Jio has worked hard to fill an important niche in the Indian smartphone market. The company has been the beneficiary of a US$4.5 billion investment in Google last year with the two working together to make highly affordable smartphones that aim to democratize the technology. The first collaboration, the JioPhone Next was expected to launch today but has been delayed into November.

Jio has announced that the JioPhone Next is still going through testing with a “limited set of users for further refinement” with the company “actively working to make it available more widely”. The company intimated that the global semiconductor shortage had a role to play in the delay and that its plans to further develop the device ahead of its launch would be used to offset the time needed to get the necessary components together for the release.

According to analysts, the JioPhone Next (which could be priced below US$30) when it eventually launches, could address as much as 25 percent of the Indian smartphone market. This could mean a potential audience of as many as 320 million users. As you would expect, it is modestly featured and relies on a Snapdragon 215 quad-core SoC paired with either 2 GB or 3 GB RAM. It also centers on a 720p LCD panel but does, importantly, support 4G LTE connectivity.

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