Jio Platforms, the digital arm of Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries, has launched a virtual desktop service for set-top box users. This means that India’s richest man, Reliance’s chairman Mukesh Ambani, hopes to turn millions of TVs in the world’s most populous country into PCs.
Called JioPC, the service offers a cloud-based PC experience through Jio’s set-top box, which comes bundled for free with the telco’s home broadband service or can be purchased separately for ₹5,499 ($64). Currently in free trial and available via waitlist, users can access the virtual desktop on their TV by plugging in a keyboard and mouse once they receive an invite and set up their account.
At present, the service has some limitations, including no support for external peripherals, such as cameras and printers. Similarly, it supports open source LibreOffice, which is pre-installed. To use Microsoft Office apps, users need to access them via the available browser.
That said, Ambani’s move with JioPC looks promising — at least on paper.
Tarun Pathak, a research director at Counterpoint, told TechCrunch that JioPC is a very effective way for the Mumbai-headquartered company to increase its user base, which already has over 488 million users.
Around 70% of Indian households have a TV, but only 15% of them own a PC, per Pathak. But Jio Platforms could have its hands full with marketing and explanations. “You need to convince people that you can still use a PC on your TV using the set-top box,” he stated.
India’s active pay-TV set-top box user base stands at nearly 57 million, per government data. However, the traditional direct-to-home (DTH) TV market is shrinking as more consumers shift to internet-based services. As of March, the active DTH subscriber base had declined by 8% year-over-year, the data shows.
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Prabhu Ram, vice president of the Industry Research Group (IRG) at CyberMedia Research (CMR), said with JioPC, Jio could onboard new set-top box users …