There are about 250 million feature phone users in India, and many of them still use 2G phones and only for voice calls, according to the International Data Corporation
Indranil Mukherjee | Afp | Getty Images
The world may be moving on to super-fast internet speeds on 5G or even 6G, but masses in rural India are still stuck in the 2G era.
All that could change with a new $12 phone from Reliance Jio this week.
The telecommunications arm of Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries, has opened the door for more people to gain access to the internet through the launch of its new internet-enabled phone with a 4G mobile network. Feature phones are essentially non-smartphones that have a push-button keypad and a small non-touch display.
Reliance Jio’s new feature phone aims to reduce the mobile connectivity gap between rural and urban India by giving non-smartphone users a cheaper alternative to switch from 2G to 4G mobile networks.
“There are still 250 million mobile phone users in India who remain trapped in the 2G era, unable to tap into basic features of the internet at a time when the world stands at the cusp of a 5G revolution,” Reliance Jio’s Chairman Akash Ambani said in a press release.
5G refers to the next-generation mobile networks that offer data at very high speeds, and are needed to support advanced technologies like driverless cars and virtual reality.
The new phone, named Jio Bharat, serves as an entry-level phone for first time internet users that would just rely on the basic functions without being convoluted by the endless number of applications that can be found on a smartphone, Varun Mishra, senior analyst at Counterpoint Research, said.
India is already the world’s second-largest smartphone market and is likely to add 300 million new internet users, making it the fastest country to provide internet services to those who remain unconnected, Mishra said.
“With a familiar form factor and internet connectivity, this device can help users experience key services like digital payments, content, and more for the first time through Jio’s ecosystem,” Mishra told CNBC. “However, screen size can limit the experience a bit, but still good for first-time internet users.”
Customer retention
Jio has an upper hand against its competitors in the telco service space, such as Vodafone Idea — a partnership between Aditya Birla Group and Vodafone Group — as well as Bhati Airtelas and BSNL.
Apart from selling the phone at an extremely low price point, monthly plans from Jio are also very affordable — and the other telco companies could even start losing customers, Mishra highlighted.
Reliance Jio claims that their monthly plans are 30% cheaper than other telcos, and offer customers seven times more data.
Paying $1.50 will get users unlimited voice calls and 14 gigabytes of data, compared to almost $3 for other voice calls and just 2 gigabytes of data from other operators, Reliance Jio’s press statement claimed.
This is Jio’s tactic to attract more feature phone users to sign a plan with them even though they only offer 4G and 5G mobile network services, according to Navkendar Singh of the International Data Corporation (IDC).
Reliance Jio has rolled out 5G services in 406 cities in India.
Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images
There are about 250 million feature phone users in India, and many of them still use 2G phones and only for voice calls, according to Mishra.
Reliance Jio attracts these consumers and take them away from “legacy operators” by offering more “palatable” price plans, Singh told CNBC in a phone interview.
“From what we understand, the main objective for Jio is to get more customers on the Jio platform and the Jio network, and they can then start cross-selling the services,” he said, explaining that customers can also tap on Jio’s payment and streaming services.
Additionally, Singh highlighted that Reliance Jio hopes first-time internet users who purchase the Jio Bharat will eventually upgrade to more advanced phones down the road.
“Right now, Jio gets revenue of about $1.50 to $2 a month, and when customers subsequently upgrade their phones in three or four years time, they would choose more advanced feature phones or low cost smartphones at some point in time,” he added.
Price war with other telcos?
Analysts who spoke to CNBC also agree that despite Jio’s cost-friendly plans, other telco companies are unlikely to significantly drop their prices.
“There’s been an ongoing tussle between Jio and other telcos in India,” said Nikhil Batra, research director of IDC.
“Lowering prices across the board will not be a viable option, but it will be a challenge for [other telcos] to create new customer experiences and product bundles to increase customer stickiness,” Batra said.
According to data from Macquarie Research, Jio currently has the biggest subscriber market share in Delhi (34%), Mumbai (35%), and Kolkata (42%), compared to Vodafone Idea,Bharti Airtel and BSNL.
However, other telcos could still benefit from those in India who continue to choose phones that do not let them surf the internet.
Macquarie data also showed that in rural areas such as Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir, and Himachal Pradesh, Bharti Airtel holds a larger market share than Jio.
India’s 5G rollout
India has the world’s second largest telecom industry with a subscriber base of 1.17 billion people as of September 2022, data from IDC showed. The growth trajectory of the sector is just going to get higher from here, the market intelligence firm said.
“The industry’s growth over the past few years has been primarily driven by lower tariffs, availability of affordable smartphones, launch of telecom services by Reliance Jio, expansion of 4G coverage, and higher data consumption by subscribers,” Batra said.
More consumers are also expected to purchase smartphones that have a 5G mobile network.
About 52 million 5G-enabled phones were purchased in 2022, an increase from 26 million the previous year, IDC data showed.
“India’s 5G rollout has been much quicker and smoother and is well on course to reach pan-India by Jio by the end of the year. Jio and Airtel already have 5G services, and Vodafone Idea and BSNL are expected to join in rolling out 5G by 2024,” Counterpoint Research’s Mishra said.
Men talk on their mobile phones in front of an iphone 14 advertisement, in Kolkata on September 27, 2022.
Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Counterpoint Research estimates there are nearly 85 million users of 5G capable smartphones in India, and 5G handsets had captured 32% of market share in 2022. Over 50% of smartphones shipped in April 2023 had 5G capabilities as well.
However, this is largely supply driven, Batra said. That’s because “brands are able to bring in more 5G devices due to the better supplies achieved by 5G roll out and demand for 5G phones in other countries such as China and Korea.”
“Consumers in India have not really demanded a 5G device until now, their purchases being driven by the availability as almost all smartphone models are priced around $300 and are 5G capable,” he added.
Despite regulation and telecom infrastructure challenges, “India will be a major market for 5G by 2026 and will dominate the 5G net additions just as China starts to mature and decelerate,” Batra said.
Technology is playing a much bigger role these days and “we can expect India to further accelerate and set an example,” he said citing the example of banking and Unified Payments Interface as an example.
“India leapfrogged the majority of developed nations in making digital payments convenient, accessible, and widely accepted, irrespective of merchant sizes,” he added.
Amazon made plenty of news this week — from advances in the cloud business to questions about its partnership with the U.S. Postal Service — leaving investors with a lot to digest. The flurry of headlines comes at the end of a challenging year. The e-commerce and cloud giant’s stock is up 4.6%, compared to the broad market S & P 500’s 16.4%, and well behind all of its Magnificent Seven peers. Despite the company showing reaccelerating growth in AWS and enhancements to its dominant Prime e-commerce ecosystem, investors remain concerned that it is losing ground in the AI race and could face margin pressure from tariffs. We believe the company has turned a corner. “A better year is ahead as management continues to prove out its AI strategy and expand operating margins,” Jeff Marks, portfolio director for Club, wrote in a report on Thursday, highlighting stocks that are set up for a bounce back in 2026. Here’s how this week’s news fits into that investment thesis: Upbeat updates at cloud event News: During Amazon ‘s annual re:Invent 2025 conference in Las Vegas, Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman unveiled Trainium3 , the latest version of the company’s in-house custom chip. It delivers four times the compute performance, energy efficiency, and memory bandwidth of previous generations. AWS also announced that it is already working on Trainium4. The company also revealed a series of cloud products, including advanced AI-driven platforms and agents that help customers automate workloads. Our take: We were pleased to hear that AWS continues to innovate its chip offerings to diversify its reliance on Nvidia , the industry leader in graphics processing units (GPUs). However, most of the investor focus is on bringing data center capacity online. Amazon needs to buy more Nvidia chips to catch up in AI. Also, Jim Cramer interviewed AWS CEO Matt Garman on “Mad Money” earlier this week, who was upbeat about the future growth of the cloud business. USPS ties tested News: According to a Washington Post report, Amazon could sever its relationship with the USPS when its contract expires in October 2026. Amazon likely considered the move, as it already has a shadow postal service, Amazon Logistics, that handles billions of packages annually. By removing USPS as the middleman, Amazon would have complete financial and operational control. Amazon refuted the report . Our take: For years, the e-commerce and cloud giant invested billions of dollars to build a vast logistics network that is now delivering more packages in the U.S. than UPS and FedEx . It still uses the USPS for delivery of small, low-weight packages, especially those from third-party Amazon sellers. USPS is also helpful for “last-mile delivery” in difficult-to-serve geographic areas. If the company were to eliminate the Postal Service as a middleman, it could further reduce its cost to serve, thereby improving margins. Possible IPO payday News: Anthropic, the AI startup behind the Claude chatbot, is reportedly in talks to launch one of the biggest IPOs ever in early 2026, according to the Financial Times. Anthropic responded that it had no immediate plans for an IPO and instead is “keeping our options open,” Anthropic chief communications officer Sasha de Marigny said at an Axios event in New York City on Thursday. Our take: An Anthropic public offering could be a massive payday for Amazon, which has invested about $8 billion in Anthropic. As part of that investment, Anthropic partnered with AWS as its primary cloud provider and training partner to run its massive AI training and inference workloads. An Anthropic IPO would elevate the AI startup and thereby enhance AWS’s dominance as the best-in-class cloud provider. Ultra-fast grocery delivery News: Amazon said it is testing an ultra-fast delivery service for fresh groceries, everyday essentials, and popular items, available in as little as 30 minutes, starting in Seattle and Philadelphia. Amazon Prime members get discounted delivery fees starting at $3.99 per order, compared with $13.99 for non-Prime customers. Club take: Amazon has continued to expand into online grocery and essentials, as customers increasingly opt to shop for daily essentials with the online retailer. While the retail business comes with thin margins, Amazon continues to operate it with an eye on reducing its cost to serve, which should help improve margins over time. Amazon is already second in line as the top U.S. retailer, right behind Walmart in terms of U.S. online grocery sales. As it continues to make headway in the industry, Amazon should be able to capitalize on this significant growth opportunity, especially as it harnesses its advanced AI capabilities for optimal inventory placement and demand forecasting. (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long AMZN, NVDA. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wears the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses, as he delivers a speech presenting the new line of smart glasses, during the Meta Connect event at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, U.S., Sept. 17, 2025.
“We’re excited that Limitless will be joining Meta to help accelerate our work to build AI-enabled wearables,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement.
Limitless makes a small, AI-powered pendant that can record conversations and generate summaries.
Limitless CEO Dan Siroker revealed the deal on Friday via a corporate blog post but did not disclose the financial terms.
“Meta recently announced a new vision to bring personal superintelligence to everyone and a key part of that vision is building incredible AI-enabled wearables,” Siroker said in the post and an accompanying video. “We share this vision and we’ll be joining Meta to help bring our shared vision to life.”
Read more CNBC tech news
The world of AI wearables has been slowly growing this year, but no company has landed a standout product.
Meta’s Ray-Ban smartglasses, which have been a surprise hit, have a sprinkling of AI flavor with the inclusion of the company’s AI digital assistant.
There are several wearable devices available that are similar to Limitless.
Friend offers a pendant-style device, Plaud comes in a small card shape or pill that can be clipped on or worn around your neck or on your wrist, and Bee, which is worn on a wristband and was scooped up by Amazon in July.
Amazon also runs AI through its Alexa+ line of Echo Speakers, while Google‘s Pixel 10 phones have the Gemini assistant built in.
Salesforce shares popped 5% on Friday after the company posted better-than-expected third-quarter earnings on Wednesday despite falling short of Wall Street’s revenue estimates.
The stock, which is up 13% over the past five days, is aiming for its best week since 2023.
The company reported adjusted earnings per share of $3.25, topping Wall Street’s estimates of $2.86 per share. Revenue increased 8.6% year over year to $10.26 billion but just missed analyst projections of $10.27 billion.
Although the artificial intelligence boom has pushed several tech companies into record surges, cloud software firms have seen a rocky year as investors wonder whether AI will render the industry obsolete.
Salesforce is hoping to persuade Wall Street that AI will be able to bolster its products rather than replace them.
Investors “somehow think software companies are under arrest from AI, when the opposite is true,” Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff told CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Thursday.
During the third quarter, the company acquired startups Regrello and Waii, which uses AI to generate code with natural language instructions.
Despite Salesforce’s shares being down 21% year to date, compared with the Nasdaq’s 22% gain, analysts are more optimistic for 2026.
“CRM [Salesforce] continues to be levered to digital transformation, and we expect the company to grow at a solid rate going forward,” Mizuho analysts wrote. “At the same time, we believe CRM will remain fiscally disciplined and that it can continue to drive higher operating and FCF margins.”
Analysts highlighted Salesforce’s AI platform Agentforce, which builds agents that automate business tasks and streamline workflow.
Despite initial investor skepticism over the platform, Cantor analysts were encouraged by its strong adoption in the customer service space.
“We think CRM is starting to formalize and mature the strategy, which should make it easier for customers to understand, and therefore adopt, Agentforce,” the Cantor analysts wrote.
Annual recurring revenue of Agentforce jumped 330% year over year to $540 million.
“Why everyone is so excited about Agentforce is because this is what AI was meant to be,” Benioff said. “It brings together humans and data and AI and apps, and delivers an incredible experience for companies.”