Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Retail has bought a 16% stake for around $7 million, in KaiOS Technologies (KTI), the US-based company which provides operating system for JioPhone. Reliance Retail paid around $3.6 for each of 19,04,781 common shares. KTI is an early stage revenue company, with turnover of $ 9.25 million in 2017 and $ 2.5 million in 2016. KTI's flagship product 'KaiOS' originates from the Firefox open-source project, and enable mobile and IoT devices. The mobile devices are positioned between smartphones and feature phones. According to Reliance, this investment “has potential synergies” with its current investments in affordable digital devices business and its digital services initiatives. Apart from Jio in India, KaiOS powers phones in Canada and USA through partnerships with Sprint, AT&T and T-Mobile. In total, over 30 million people are already using devices running KaiOS, according to the…
