According to media reports, Reliance Jio, an Indian network operator run by India's wealthiest man Mukesh Ambani, has launched the JioPhone Next, an Android smartphone developed in partnership with Google, which will be available in September.

The Indian company shared plans to develop a low-cost smartphone last year, receiving a $4.5 billion investment from Google. The company said JioPhone Next aims to help India's 300 million users still using 2G networks upgrade their devices to access faster networks.

Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Jio's parent company Reliance Industries, said at its annual general meeting on Thursday that the phone uses an "extremely optimized Android" mobile operating system and supports a full suite of applications from Google and Reliance Jio."

The JioPhone Next, which will offer voice assistants, cameras, language translation, and other features, is the most affordable smartphone and is aimed at India's 300 million-plus "feature" phone (non-smartphone) users. While most smartphone shipping in India is priced at $150 or less, customers looking for a smartphone priced under $100 have little choice. In recent years, such choices have become increasingly scarce, and smartphone makers have recognized this gap in the market.

Google said in a statement that JioPhone Next is "an important step for us in India and the first of many tasks that our Android product and engineering teams will embark on in India. We are also actively expanding our engineering team in India and continuing our efforts to find ways to meet the unique needs of Indian smartphone users."