India’s on the cusp of a data revolution, and Samsung just latched onto it

The Indian youth is all about smartphones and data. Photo credit: BollywoodBubble.

India’s richest man Mukesh Ambani is preparing for the commercial launch of the nation’s biggest 4G broadband network, Reliance Jio this year, and that is expected to bring about a data revolution in the world’s second biggest smartphone market.

The new telco is expected to open up massive opportunities for smartphone companies, digital content providers, and even app-based startups, many of which have said they have been betting some heavy personalisations on this company’s supposedly ultra-fast network.

See: The importance of having a good data feed in ecommerce

For the uninitiated, Reliance Jio is hotly awaited because the company holds a pan-India license for 4G spectrum, and it will offer only 4G LTE connectivity. That’s expected to totally disrupt India’s mobile connectivity scene, and hopefully put an end to the woes of painfully blotchy data speeds and dead zones.

In a country that is fast becoming a data consumption hub, it is really not possible to stress enough on the importance of fast, reliable internet connections – and Samsung seems to have latched on to that.

The world’s biggest smartphone maker is now offering a preview of Jio’s network to select smartphone users, who are able to use unlimited voice, video, and data for three months from the day they activate a Jio SIM card. The cards are being offered for free.

TechPP has a list of the phone models that Samsung is allowing for the preview, and it is clear the push is towards the higher end of the smartphone spectrum.

That figures, because though India has among the cheapest data rates in the world, most of it is poor quality. A premium quality LTE network might be slightly more expensive than the current subscription rates, and its target audience would overwhelmingly be the urban mobile user.

Samsung too wants to be a startup. Photo credit: Samsung.

Samsung is the leading smartphone brands in the country, but it has been under constant pressure from local rival Micromax, China’s Xiaomi, and even Apple’s growing popularity.

It has also seen some slowdown globally, which makes India an important market for the chaebol. Gartner says smartphone sales will flatten out in China and North America but zoom up by 29 percent in India this year.

See: Samsung wants to be a startup. What could go wrong?