With an eye on entering mobile manufacturing, Reliance Industries may acquire United Telelinks or forge a contract-manufacturing deal, sources said.

Questions sent to Reliance Industries remained unanswered. Jio Platforms, the telecom and technology arm of Reliance Industries, has received funding from top global private equity and internet giants, including Facebook and Google.

Sources said with Jio attaining leadership in the telecom space, Jio Platforms — the holding company for Reliance Jio — now wants to even control/offer a bundled eco-system to existing and new subscribers to help them migrate to affordable 4G smartphones. This is in line with Mukesh Ambani’s call to make 2G “history” in the country, a statement that would involve upgrading millions of subscribers (mainly from Airtel and Vodafone Idea) to the smartphone eco-system.

Speaking at the 43rd AGM of RIL a few months back, Ambani had announced new frontiers of expansion in the digital and telecom space where he spoke of ambitious plans in the lucrative handset market. He said Jio was targeting 500 million mobile customers by 2023, promising to bring out highly-affordable 4G and even 5G devices that would run on Android operating system provided by the new partner, Google.

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