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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

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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.

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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. 

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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.

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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.

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Palantir sues former employees, says Percepta AI CEO set out to ‘pillage’ top developers

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Palantir sues former employees, says Percepta AI CEO set out to 'pillage' top developers

Palantir Technologies CEO Alex Karp attends the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit on the campus of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, July 15, 2025.

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Palantir expanded its lawsuit against two former employees on Thursday to include the CEO of their new artificial intelligence startup, Percepta AI.

In the suit, Palantir alleged that Percepta CEO and co-founder Hirsh Jain, co-founder Radha Jain, and a third employee, Joanna Cohen, violated their non-solicitation agreements, hiring top talent to create a competitive business.

Palantir and Percepta didn’t immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

The three defendants are accused of attempting to “poach” executives and developers from their former company and “plunder Palantir’s valuable intellectual property.”

Cohen and Radha Jain, who were named in the original lawsuit filed in October, were previously senior engineers at Palantir. Hirsh Jain, an executive responsible for the company’s healthcare portfolio, was added as another defendant in the latest complaint.

Palantir said the defendants were “entrusted” with the company’s “crown jewels,” including source code, customer workflows and proprietary customer engagement strategies.

The former employees “brazenly disregarded their contractual and legal commitments to Palantir and instead chose a path of deception and unjust competition,” the plaintiffs said in the document, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Cohen and Radha Jain denied the initial allegations in a November filing, and agreed to stop working for Percepta during the proceedings.

The suit accused Hirsh Jain, who resigned from Palantir in August 2024, of an “aggressive campaign” to recruit other employees to join Percepta, and said the startup has already hired at least 10 former Palantir employees.

An alleged message written by Hirsh Jain in November 2024 read, “I’m down to pillage the best devs at palantir when they’re at their maximum richness.”

The complaint says Rhada Jain wrote another message saying, “God thinking about poaching is so fun.”

Palantir, which was co-founded by Peter Thiel, CEO Alex Karp and others, builds analytics software for companies and government agencies, including the U.S. military. The company’s stock price has soared more than tenfold since the end of 2023, lifting its market cap close to $450 billion.

Palantir also accused Cohen of sending herself highly confidential documents shortly after announcing her resignation from the company in March. Cohen allegedly took photos of sensitive information, the suit said, and downloaded the files onto her personal phone.

“At Percepta, they seek to succeed not through old-fashioned ingenuity and competition, but through outright theft and deceit,” Palantir said in the filing.

Among other things, Palantir is asking for the defendants to be forced to return any confidential information in their possession, and to avoid working at Percepta or venture backer General Catalyst for 12 months from the time of an order.

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Trump ‘sells out’ U.S. national security with Nvidia chip sales to China, Sen. Warren says

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Trump 'sells out' U.S. national security with Nvidia chip sales to China, Sen. Warren says

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., speaks during a Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee confirmation hearing on President Donald Trump’s nominees to lead the National Economic Council, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Federal Housing Finance Agency, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Feb. 27, 2025.

Annabelle Gordon | Reuters

President Donald Trump‘s decision to let Nvidia sell its advanced H200 artificial intelligence chips to China “sells out American national security,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said Thursday.

Warren also reiterated her call for Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to testify before Congress about the agreement, along with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

The senator’s fiery remarks on the Senate floor came three days after Trump announced on social media that the U.S. semiconductor giant Nvidia could sell the chips to “approved customers” in China, so long as the U.S. gets a 25% cut of the revenues.

The announcement drew concerns both from Democrats and some of Trump’s Republican allies, who have been vocal about protecting America’s hardware advantage over China in the race to AI superiority.

Warren, in Thursday’s remarks, urged Congress to pass bipartisan legislation that “reins in this administration” by imposing new chip export restrictions. Critics of the bill say it could undermine U.S. chipmakers’ competitiveness.

The Trump administration knows that China gaining access to the chips, which have previously been subject to export restrictions, “poses a serious threat to our technological leadership and national security,” Warren said on the Senate floor.

She noted that shortly before Trump announced his decision on the H200 chips on Monday, the Department of Justice touted a crackdown touted a crackdown on a “major China-linked AI tech smuggling network.”

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“So why did the President make this bad deal that sells out the American economy and sells out American national security?” she asked. “It’s simple: In the Trump administration, money talks.”

“Mr. Huang understands that in this administration, being able to cozy up to Donald Trump might be the most important corporate CEO skill of all,” Warren said.

She pointed to Huang attending a $1 million-per-plate dinner at Trump’s Florida home Mar-a-Lago, and Nvidia’s later donations to the president’s under-construction White House ballroom.

“Those are just the most obvious possible reasons to cut this deal,” Warren said, “and who knows what else Mr. Huang might have done behind closed doors to persuade President Trump and Secretary Lutnick into making this dangerous concession.”

CNBC has reached out to Nvidia for comment on the senator’s remarks.

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Musk says SpaceX report of 2026 IPO is ‘accurate’

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Musk says SpaceX report of 2026 IPO is 'accurate'

The Axiom-4 mission, with a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket, lifts off from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, June 25, 2025.

Giorgio Viera | AFP | Getty Images

Elon Musk responded to the latest report that SpaceX is going public in 2026, calling it “accurate.”

The article from Ars Technica’s Eric Berger examined why this is the right time for Musk’s space venture to IPO, and said the rise of artificial intelligence and opportunities for data centers in space play an important role in the move.

“As usual, Eric is accurate,” Musk wrote on his social media platform X in response to Berger’s article.

Musk’s comment comes after multiple news outlets said that SpaceX was looking to go public in 2026, with The Information and Wall Street Journal both reporting last week on the likeliness of an IPO, as well as a new share sale valuing the company at about $800 billion.

Bloomberg said this week that the company was pursuing an IPO in 2026 and is looking to raise more than $30 billion.

Over the weekend, Musk said on X that reports of the $800 billion valuation were “not accurate” and addressed the amount his company gets from NASA.

“While I have great fondness for @NASA, they will constitute less than 5% of our revenue next year,” Musk wrote. “Commercial Starlink is by far our largest contributor to revenue. Some people have claimed that SpaceX gets ‘subsidized’ by NASA. This is absolutely false.”

SpaceX didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Heading into 2026, SpaceX and Tesla CEO Musk look set to gain a powerful ally in the government’s space program.

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Jared Isaacman, who paid millions to lead two private spaceflights with SpaceX in 2021 and 2024, is likely to become the next NASA administrator and was voted through committee on Monday.

He now heads to a full Senate vote for confirmation.

SpaceX is a key contractor for NASA, but acting administrator Sean Duffy has criticized Musk’s space operation for being behind on the Artemis moon trip, which has seen several delays.

Musk lashed out at Duffy, accusing him on X of “trying to kill NASA!”

Duffy, who is the secretary of transportation, was handed the reins of the space program this summer by President Donald Trump, after he pulled Isaacman’s nomination following a clash with Musk.

Trump said at the time that Isaacman’s relationship with Musk represented a conflict of interest.

The renomination of Isaacman at the beginning of November signaled that the relationship between Trump and Musk was on the mend, and the Tesla CEO’s attendance at a White House dinner later that month solidified the return to camaraderie.

— CNBC’s Lora Kolodny contributed to this report.

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