New Delhi: Pre-bookings of the much-awaited Jio Phone had crossed the three million mark, within a couple of hours of the service of reserving the 4G Volte featurephone being opened on Thursday.

According to executives in trade channels, the final number likely to be several times higher by the close of the day, as accounting of the total bookings at 500 apiece was still being done. Consumers booking the 4G phone online experienced glitches on the company's website, while some also complained that the Jio app was not functioning properly.

Reliance Jio and Reliance Retail did not comment on the details.

Reliance Industries, the parent company of both companies, was learnt to be bracing for an initial demand-supply mismatch, as it anticipated demand to be very high, even as it was training hundreds of sales people across its own retail stores and sales people of other large-format retail chains.

The Mukesh Ambani-owned company plans to gradually ramp up supply and aims to have 5 million JioPhones available on retail channels every week. The mass market 4G phone is being offered effectively free and is key to the operator's bid to quickly scale up its nearly 125 million user base by targeting a base of nearly 500 million featurephone users.

The large scale interest in the device stems from the value proposition along with the price.

While retailers were taking pre-booking at 500, users would have to pay up the remaining 1,000 when they receive the device, taking the total refundable cost to 1,500. Buyers can pay this amount upfront as well.

The phone has the voice command feature, with pre-loaded Jio apps, live TV, movies among others besides popular apps including Facebook and YouTube with WhatsApp likely to be loaded on later.

People buying the phone would have to pay an additional monthly tariff of 153 for bundled voice and data services.

The phone will be distributed on a first-come-first-serve basis through Jio retailers, multi-brand device retailers and the network of Reliance Digital stores. ET had reported recently that Reliance could introduce the option to return the handset before the stipulated period of three years and get part of the security deposit back.

The new telecom service provider's move has prompted the No 1 carrier, Bharti Airtel, to devise a 2,500 4G smartphone in partnership with local handset makers like Lava and Karbonn. Some brands like Intex have already announced their VoLTE featurephones.