JioPhone Next rollout deferred, set to launch in time for Diwali

Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio on Friday announced that it has deferred the roll-out of JioPhone Next, the low-priced smartphone developed in partnership with Google, to Diwali. The JioPhone was scheduled to launch on September 10. “Both companies have begun testing the JioPhone Next with a limited set of users for further refinement and are actively working to make it available more widely in time for the Diwali festive season,” Reliance Jio said in a statement. The company said that the delay will help the company address the ‘industry-wide, global semiconductor shortages’.

The company, however, said that Jio and Google made considerable progress towards launching the JioPhone Next. It said that testing of the JioPhone Next with a limited set of users for further refinement has begun and efforts are being made to roll it out before Diwali.