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Apple CEO Tim Cook reportedly gives the nod to supplying smartphones to Indian operator.
Reliance Jio Infocomm and Apple have agreed a long-term deal that will see the latter supply the Indian 4G operator with iPhones, it emerged on Thursday.
Sources cited by the Economic Times claim Apple CEO Tim Cook discussed the agreement for two hours during a meeting with representatives of Reliance Jio and its parent company Reliance Industries.
According to the report, Reliance is keen to bundle iPhones with Jio’s 4G service and sell them via Reliance Retail, which boasts 120,000 outlets nationwide.
The ET’s sources claimed Cook has agreed in principle to a long-term strategic partnership with Reliance Jio.
Meanwhile, the report alleged that Reliance Retail is also keen to equip shop-floor staff with iPhones packing point-of-sale software developed by Apple in partnership with IBM.
In addition, the ET claimed that Reliance Retail will consider deploying Apple Pay at its stores.
Reliance Jio recently revealed that it has around 500,000 4G users on its network, but despite years of build-up, its service has yet to launch commercially.
The company is rolling out LTE, fibre-to-the-home (FTTH), and WiFi. According to the latest reports, the launch might not come before the end of this year.
