RELIANCE INDUSTRIES STARTS TESTING COUNTRY'S FIRST SMART TELEVISION OPERATING SYSTEM

Reliance Industries has started testing the country’s first indigenously developed smart television operating system (OS) developed by it for a possible commercial launch of televisions running on it by Diwali, two industry executives said.

The Jio TV OS, which will be based on Google’s Android platform, will compete against top television manufacturer OS such as Samsung’s Tizen OS, LG’s webOS, Skyworth’s Coolita OS and Vidaa OS by Hisense Group. Reliance has provided its TV OS to some home grown TV manufacturers for beta testing for feedback and fix bugs, the executives said.

Reliance will itself launch 4K and full high definition smart televisions running its own Jio OS and is also entering into licensing agreements with other homegrown television manufacturers. Reliance sells smart TVs under the BPL and Reconnect brands. These models will be mostly at the entry level segment.

An industry executive said the Jio smart TV OS will help Jio to bundle its other apps such as JioCinema, drive revenue through advertising and bundle its Jio broadband connections.

Last October, Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd chairman Akash Ambani had announced plans to develop a smart TV OS on which it has been working for a while, but did not share any details. This entity had worked on the project.

An email sent to Reliance Jio Infocomm remained unanswered as of Thursday press time.

One of the executives said Reliance is not charging any licensing fees for the Jio TV OS since it wants to make it really popular. “Large MNCs like Samsung and LG are unlikely to roll out TVs on this OS since they have their own smart TV OS. So, Reliance wants to enter into agreement with some of the home grown and smaller brands to increase adoption,” he said.

Another executive said the Jio TV OS is open source, and will be available for all developers to build an app which will be optimised for smart TV but other connected devices too such as smartphones.

According to market tracker Counterpoint Research, the country’s smart TV shipments declined by 14% year-on-year in the January to March period. Smart TV shipments for the 55-inch and above screen size rose 23% year-on-year in the March quarter, making it the only segment to show growth. The researcher said the market is likely to decline by 10% in calendar 2024 due to reduced demand for small-screen TVs.