Demand for VoLTE devices have jumped up, thanks to Reliance Jio’s 4G launch

With the launch of Reliance Jio Infocomm’s 4G, there has been a tremendous increase in smartphones that support voice over long-term evolution (VoLTE) feature. The demand has nearly doubled in the past few months.

The interest for VoLTE-featured devices was shown by consumers in small towns as many people in these places associate the technology with free calls that the company is offering.

Jio is offering free phone calls for life and supports only VoLTE calling and this has made a tremendous increase in interest of consumers in VoLTE supporting devices. Internet searches for phones under Rs 5,000 VoLTE phones have increased and this has made the phone vendors to launch more phones supporting VoLTE feature at lower prices.

"To a consumer in tier 3 and tier 4 cities or lower down, VoLTE means free calls - because of Reliance Jio - that's why we see more demand coming compared to urban and tier 1and 2 cities. Tier 1and 2 level consumers understand the technology and know that VoLTE will give them better quality HD voice calling, due to three-four Chinese brands promoting their phones in such a way, but consumers in the lower tiers are not as aware of the new technology,” said Pankaj Rana, head of smartphones business at Panasonic told ET.

According to the data by 911mobiles.com, Internet search volumes for VoLTE phones jumped 40 per cent sequentially in the quarter ended September just a few days after Jio launched its 4G.

The increased demand for VoLTE supporting devices in smaller towns is because of the people there being most prices sensitive.

"With the launch of Jio services, we expect VoLTE capability to be a default functionality in smartphones and the ASP (average selling price) can penetrate sub-$50 (Rs 3,350) price band which will further drive the adoption,” Tarun Pathak, senior analyst at Counterpoint Research told ET.

By September end, 350 of the 1,132 models in the market were VoLTE-enabled.

“Six months ago, 4G had become hygiene for a metro consumer, we're beginning to see that with VoLTE now because of Jio,” Micromax Informatics' chief marketing officer, Shubhajit Sen told ET.

VoLTE allows a telco to offer both voice and data without switching between bands, with voice being just another application that rides on an LTE data network, a technology that Jio has adopted. This compares with 170 out of 800 models, or close to one in five, till June.
(image: Indiatimes)