Samsung and Jio Announce Joint Press Conference for MWC 2017

As much as we’d like the Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus to be made official as soon as possible, the South Korean company has different plans. The Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge were released at the Mobile World Congress 2016, so we expected the S8 and S8 Plus to also be unveiled at the same event next year. However, leaks have suggested that Samsung will not unveil its flagship at MWC 2017, choosing instead to hold its own separate event later.

Samsung still has its own MWC event planned for February 26th. And as Samsung’s Newsroom has announced, the company is also holding a joint press conference with Indian mobile telecom operator Jio on February 28th.

The objective of the joint press conference is basically to discuss Jio’s successful 4G LTE business, and how it captured the Indian market in a very short period of time. The conference will also share the contributions made by Samsung in this regard as Jio’s solutions partner.

There are no mentions of new products or service releases on the invite, but we do not put it past either company to hide a small surprise announcement.

Reliance Jio is the only VoLTE-only network operator in India, lacking support for legacy 2G and 3G technologies. This allows the company to focus purely on 4G LTE for all of its services. Reliance Jio commercially launched its services in September 2016 by providing free SIM cards with free unlimited voice calls, unlimited SMS and unlimited 4G connections (with throttled speeds after 4GB/day consumption) to customers, at zero cost. There were no practical strings attached to the offer, which itself extended to December 31st 2016, and which got further extended to March 31st 2017 with the daily high-speed consumption threshold lowered down to 1GB/day.

As widely expected, this freebie shower led to unprecedented demand of Jio connections. Subscribers still needed a VoLTE-compatible phone to enjoy Jio’s services, which is where Samsung and Jio’s collaboration comes into play (along with Jio’s own LYF branded budget smartphones). Samsung’s brand appeal and familiarity helped convince customers who wanted a device purely for free usage on Jio.

What do you expect out of Samsung and Jio’s joint press conference? Let us know in the comments below!

Source: Samsung Newsroom

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