Jio races ahead of Airtel to become India's 2nd largest telecom company

Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio is now reportedly the second-largest telecom company in the country. The company is said to have overtaken Bharti Airtel in terms of customer base and now trails only Vodafone Idea.
While Jio presently has 306 million customers, Vodafone Idea continues to lead the industry with 387 million subscribers, according to a Times of India report. Airtel has 284 million subscribers.

Jio, since its launch in Spetember 2016, has seen a meteoric growth on the back of aggressive and dirt-cheap consumer tariff plans.
On the other hand, Airtel, which dominated the Indian telecom space for almost two decades, is witnessing a dramatic fall. It was first overtaken by Vodafone Idea in the middle last year and now finds itself at the third spot.
In February, Jio had added 7.79 million subscribers, while Vodafone Idea lost 5.78 million customers, according to data published by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai). Airtel lost 49,896 customers.
ALSO READ: Jio's GigaFiber to offer broadband, landline, TV combo for Rs 600 a month
Over the past year, Jio's active subscriber market share has gone up to 24 per cent, gaining 9 percentage points (ppts), while Bharti has maintained its share at 32 per cent and Vodafone Idea lost 5 percentage point to fall to 37 per cent, according to a report released by brokerage firm CLSA this month.

Reliance JioPhone 2 flash sale, GigaFiber registration announced: Know more

Mukesh Ambani-owned telecommunication service provider Reliance Jio has announced that it will host a flash sale of the JioPhone 2 on August 16 at the Jio online portal. The company also announced that the first iteration of the JioPhone would get Facebook, YouTube and Google Maps apps as part of an update on August 15, and WhatsApp would also be available for download sometime soon. The company has also started taking registrations for Jio GigaFiber, a fibre-to-the-home broadband service with a promised speed of up to 1Gbps.
Reliance JioPhone 2
The JioPhone 2 is a second iteration of Reliance Jio’s 4G LTE-enable feature phones. Successor of the JioPhone, the JioPhone 2 features 2.4-inch horizontal screen and full QWERTY keyboard layout. The phone boots KaiOS, which now supports instant messaging and social media apps such as WhatsApp and Facebook, along with YouTube and Google Maps apps. The phone supports voice commands and comes bundled with a suite of Jio apps, including JioTV and Jio Music app.
Priced at Rs 2,999, the phone would be available at Jio online portal through flash sale from August 16 at 12PM onwards.
ALSO READ: JioPhone 2 vs JioPhone: How Reliance Jio's 4G VoLTE feature phones stack up

Reliance Jio GigaFiber
Announced at the Reliance Industries’ 41st Annual General Meeting, the Jio GigaFiber is a home broadband connection that is expected to launch across 1100 cities simultaneously by the end of this year. The GigaFiber would support download speed of up to 1Gbps, according to company’s claim.
Jio GigaFiber At the RIL AGM, Mukesh Ambani had announced that the Reliance Jio GigaFiber had already been under testing in several cities and it would launch simultaneously for homes, small and medium businesses and big corporate houses. He had also announced that the pre-registration for Jio GigaFiber home broadband would open from August 15, and a location that receives most users’ interest would be among the first locations to get the service.
With the Reliance Jio GigaFiber service, the company is promising internet speed of up to 1Gbps. However, the company did not share some information like the preliminary connection cost, security deposit and details of monthly plans. But a recent news report in the Economic Times hinted that the company would focus on volumes to drive demand. Therefore, it would offer broadband services bundled with DTH services at about Rs 500 a month, or effectively half the price of what other cable operators charge for similar services.
ALSO READ: Reliance Jio GigaFiber with GigaTV may cost Rs 500 a month; launch in Nov
As for add-on features of the Jio GigaFiber, unlike most other broadband services, this would not be limited only to internet connection. The FTTH internet service would act as an underlying technology that would allow the company to foray into home automation, home surveillance, landline and cable television services. However, in the beginning, the broadband connection would have only internet services and Jio GigaTV service, which was also announced during the RIL AGM 2018.
The GigaTV set-top-box would offer internet-based digital content services, along with access to Jio’s app suite. Interestingly, the set-top-box would also support a video calling feature, allowing users to make video calls from their televisions. It is to be seen how the feature would work as the televisions currently do not support camera, in-build or external. The GigaTV remote would be voice-enabled, which would make it work with voice commands – something similar to how Amazon’s Fire Stick remote works.

Reliance Jio to hire about 80,000 people during this financial year

Reliance Jio was planning to recruit about 75,000 to 80,000 people during this financial year, a senior company official said on Thursday.
"About 1,57,000 people are on the rolls today....I will say another 75,000 to 80,000 people," company's Chief Human Resources Officer Sanjay Jog told reporters on sidelines of an event organised by the Society of Human Resources Management.

He was replying to question on how many new recruitments would be made by the company during this financial year.
On attrition rate in the company, he said it was about 32 per cent in the sales and technical areas related to constructions sites.
"If it is taken at the headquarter level, it is just 2 per cent. Average if you go it will come down to 18 per cent," he explained.
Jog said the company was having partnership with about 6,000 colleges, including technical institutions, across the country.
According to him, there are some embedded courses offered in these institutions and students who clear these are "Reliance ready".
He said hiring would also be done through referrals and now with the help of social media platforms.
Recruitments through referrals now accounted for about 60 per cent to 70 per cent of the hirings, he said adding college and employees" referrals "are the two major contributors for our hiring plans.

Reliance Jio raises Rs 32.5 bn as samurai term loan from Japanese banks

Telecom operator Reliance Jio has signed an agreement to raise about Rs 32.5 billion (Rs 3,250 crore) as samurai term loan from Japan-based banks.
"Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited has signed an approximately JPY 53.5 billion samurai term loan with 7 year bullet maturity. The facility is guaranteed by Reliance Industries Limited and will be used for funding RJIL's ongoing capital expenditure," RJIL said in a late night statement on Friday.

At an exchange rate of 60 paise per Japanese yen, the loan value comes to around Rs 32.48 billion (Rs 3,248 crore).
This deal represents the largest samurai loan (low interest loans from Japanese investors) for an Asian corporate, the statement said.
"The facility has been fully underwritten by Mizuho Bank, Ltd, MUFG Bank, Ltd and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation Singapore Branch and will be shortly launched into syndication," RJIL said.
Last month, the Reliance Jio board had approved raising of around Rs 200 billion (Rs 20,000 crore) in debt. The company has invested over Rs 2 trillion (Rs 2 lakh crore) in the mobile business, which has garnered over 168 million customers.
The Mukesh Ambani firm has also signed agreement to buy mobile business assets of Reliance Communications -- the company led by his younger brother Anil Ambani -- for around Rs 250 billion (Rs 25,000 crore).
The 4G mobile service provider RJIL said that the network of the company is future ready and can be easily upgraded to support even more data, as technologies advance on to 5G, 6G, and beyond.
"Jio will bring transformational changes in the Indian digital services space to enable the vision of Digital India for 1.2 billion Indians and propel India into global leadership in digital economy," the statement said.

Jio extends Prime offer for existing users for 12 months at no extra cost

Ending the uncertainty over Prime membership, Reliance Jio Infocomm (Jio) announced on Friday that it is going to continue its Prime membership to existing prime members at no extra cost. For new Jio users, the Jio Prime Membership will continue to be available at an annual membership fees of Rs 99.
"All Jio PRIME members who have subscribed to the exclusive membership benefits until 31st March 2018 will get another year of complimentary PRIME benefits at NO additional fee," Jio said in a statement.

To avail the benefit the existing subscribers need to express interest to get complimentary membership for the next 12 months through MyJio app.
At present, there are over 175 million Jio Prime members.
"Jio deeply values its loyal PRIME members and will continue to deliver additional benefits and superior value to these founding members," the company said.
Jio had started the loyalty program last April and its time line was to expire on March 31.
The customers who subscribe to the plan received subsidised and additional benefits. Apart from the call and data benefits, users also receive access to all the Jio apps and content.
The extension of Prime membership comes days after Jio announced a new Rs 2,200 instant cashback for its prime members who would purchase Nokia 1 smartphone. Apart from the cashback, the company also offered additional 60GB 4G data to the users.
According to the terms of the Nokia 1 offer, users need to recharge their Jio number with Rs 198 or Rs 299 to get the 2,200 cashback into their MyJio account in the form of 44 vouchers, worth Rs 50.
The offer ends on March 31, 2019.

Telcos commit Rs 740-bn investment into infrastructure to curb call drops

As the problem of call drops continue to irk consumers, mobile operators have committed to invest over Rs 740 billion for upgrading the existing infrastructure and also expand the network capacity.
As per Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan, Reliance Jio has committed to invest Rs 500 billion to install 100,000 towers in the coming fiscal whereas Bharti Airtel, which has invested Rs 160 billion on infrastructure and will be spending an additional Rs 240 billion on the network.
Others, including Vodafone and Idea Cellular, will also increase the mobile sites but the operators have not given an investment figure as the merger process is going on.
Sundararajan, who met the top executives of telecom companies on Tuesday, to discuss about call drops, said the operators have raised the issue of non-availability of sites for installing mobile towers.
Although the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and sectoral regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) is taking the issue of call drops seriously but still the problem persists mainly because of huge traffic and growth of data at much faster pace.
The Secretary said as per analysis presented by mobile operators, the call drops have stabilised but other problems like fading of voice calls have increased due to various issues, including some mobile phones not complying with required certification norms.
"They (telcos) raised the issue of illegal repeaters installed in networks (which) are creating interference and affecting call quality. We will look into enforcing rules more stringently," Sundararajan said.
The vigilance arm of DoT will look into issues of non-compliance raised by telcos.
Sundararajan highlighted the issue of network traffic which is huge in India. She said telecom operators informed her that in India, around 400 callers' use a mobile tower during same time whereas in countries like China and others this average is in the range of 200-300. "They are now discussing with equipment makers to handle this kind of issue," Sundararajan added.
Also, data usage continues to grow at 20-25 per cent every month but along with data, voice traffic is also growing two-times, which has increased the load on the networks.
The mobile operators have to invest in network at a much faster pace because of growth in data and voice. Both voice and data in India are growing very fast due to cheap tariffs and plans, many of which come bundled with unlimited calling and 1 GB data every day.
The entry of Reliance Jio has fastened the pace of voice and data growth. However, the networks of operators are finding it difficult to handle the humongous traffic leading to call drops and slow speed of data.
Trai has also asked mobile operators to report the network related data for checking quality under the new benchmarks. The regulator is likely to release the data in next few days regarding network quality under the new benchmarks, which were released last year.
Under the revised rules, to measure the 2 per cent benchmark for call drops, Trai will see if 90 per cent of the base transceiver station (BTS) or mobile towers are working properly for 90 per cent of days.

RIL to spend another $23 bn on Jio over next 3-4 years, says Moody's

Moody’s Investors Service estimates Reliance Jio, the mobile carrier run by India’s richest man, may invest as much as $23 billion on capital spending over three to four years as it expands beyond wireless services.
Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd.’s parent Reliance Industries Ltd. has already spent more than $31 billion to break into India’s mobile-phone market. The 2016 upstart, known as Jio, dislodged rivals and has emerged as the nation’s No. 4 carrier. A Jio spokesman didn’t immediately answer an email with questions about the Moody’s estimate. Reliance Industries is scheduled to report quarterly earnings, including Jio’s financials, on Jan. 19.
The next leg of capital spending for the carrier will probably cover fibre-to-home, digital TV and the enterprise business in addition to improving mobile phone services, Vikas Halan, a Singapore-based Moody’s analyst said in an e-mail response to questions. Some of the money will also be spent on the company’s fourth-generation feature phones and associated network costs, he said.
Jio has been adding subscribers every month and narrowing gap with larger rivals
Jio is also gearing up for newer data-heavy services that can connect homes, businesses and cars to the Internet. Billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s venture has already triggered a bruising tariff war in the mobile-carrier segment after offering call services free for life and data transmission at no charge for an introductory period. He took another swing at rivals in July by unveiling a data-enabled feature phone advertised to sell at the equivalent of $23.
Bloomberg

Mega deal between Ambanis to help Reliance Jio take on Bharti Airtel

Reliance Jio is expected to intensify its fight with rival telco Bharti Airtel as the Mukesh Ambani-owned company buys out key assets from Anil Ambani’s Reliance Communications (RCom). In fact, with this acquisition, the Jio-Bharti battle will not just be limited to mobile telephony but will extend to the fibre to home space (FTTH) too.
While Jio is focused on disrupting the market next year once again with the launch of high-speed FTTH with its offer of broadband and TV as well, Bharti Airtel is also planning to aggressively expand this business, sources said. Bharti already has over 3 million fixed line cum broadband customers in 95 cities across India and offers IPTV (internet protocol TV). Its fibre is spread over 250,000 km across the country and internationally.
But by acquiring RCom’s fibre assets (about 178,000 km), Jio will have a much larger network, controlling more than 428,000 of inter and intra-city fibre across the country. This, sources in the know said, would enable Jio to launch its FTTH in over 30 cities across the country next year.
Jio has also mapped out a plan to address 100 million TV households across cities to ensure dense fibre penetration and last-mile connectivity.
Jio, which was virtually the sole tenant of RCom’s 43,000 towers already as part of a 10-year deal which it had signed earlier, now will become the sole owner of the assets. The deal will not only make Jio the second largest tower owner in the country with over 143,000 towers in its kitty (Jio already has 100,000 towers of its own), it will help the company deepen its 4G coverage and take on Bharti Airtel more effectively, another source pointed out. That may enable Jio to get closer to its target of acquiring another 100 million customers in the next 12 months, according to experts close to the company.
Winning the towers was crucial, say analysts, as Jio would not have liked the RCom tower business to be under the control of a competitor or an independent tower company which would have looked for other tenants. Jio’s strategy has been not to share towers with competitors from the very beginning. Analysts also point out that the company had put in smaller towers but their capacity with the onslaught of data usage is very limited. On a later date, Jio may even think of monetising the towers once its business has stabilized, according to analysts.
ALSO READ: Ambani dials Ambani: Jio to buy RCom's mobile biz assets for Rs 24,000 cr

On the other hand, Sunil Mittal’s Bharti Group, through Bharti Infratel and through their 42 per cent stake in Indus Towers, effectively has economic interest in over 90,000 towers. However, if there’s a restructuring of the business under which Indus Towers will merge with Bharti Infratel (with Infra buying out the stakes of Vodafone and Idea), Bharti will have over 170,000 towers under its belt. There are indications that Bharti could reduce its holding in Bharti Infratel to a minority stake as part of its monetization plan.
For Jio buying out the crucial 850 Mhz and 900 Mhz spectrum, which it got partly from MTS and partly through auction, makes sense because it expires only around 2033. That will give Jio stability and is crucial for taking the growing pressure of 4G data and expanding customer base, analysts say.
Analysts say that Jio has bought over 98 Mhz of spectrum in 1800 and 2100 MHz bands as well. In an auction, it would have cost the company over Rs 7,000 crore, they argue. However, it is not known what value they have imputed to this sale. They also point out that losing this spectrum to a rival like Airtel or Vodafone would have impacted Jio’s aggressive customer acquisition strategy and data push.