Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio continues eating into incumbent subscriber pie

Mobile broadband subscriber base growth since last year clearly shows that Jio has continued to get the benefit of the closure of smaller operators as the increase in subscriber base of Jio is way ahead in speed and scale compared to that of incumbents as shown by Trai’s July subscriber addition numbers.

Mobile broadband subscriber net addition, over the past few months, clearly shows that Jio has benefited from the twin impact of telco consolidation and the change in the Jio feature phone offer, which has positively impacted its numbers

Data subscriber base growth over the last year has been phenomenal for all other telco players, but Jio has continued to lead the growth

Active subscriber base numbers indicate that Jio still has some catching up to do in terms of becoming the primary usage SIM of consumers

Business Standard

New Year disruption plan: Now, Reliance Jio moves to broadband, TV space

After its success in mobile telephony, Reliance Jio is preparing to disrupt the market once again. This time in the fixed broadband and television (TV) space.

The Mukesh Ambani-led company will launch high-speed fibre to the home (FTTH) broadband in more than 30 cities early next year, to offer TV as well as internet to subscribers, it is learnt.

Jio has mapped out a plan to address over 100 million TV households across these cities, including Tier II and III, by ensuring dense fibre presence for last-mile connectivity to homes. In the first phase itself, at least 50 million households will be offered the service, according to sources in the know.

Jio has already spread out over 300,000 kilometres of optic fibre (half of which is through a long-term contract with Anil Ambani’s Reliance Communications).

In fact, Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani, in his annual general meeting speech this year, indicated that Jio was on track to offer high-speed broadband services. The infrastructure was in place and it would be the next big monetisation opportunity for the company, he had said.
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The 2017 agenda: Reliance Jio to soon venture into DTH, broadband services

Reliance Jio stormed into the telecom industry with the launch of ultra-affordable high speed 4G internet services combined with free voice calls, SMS and Jio apps. To keep the momentum going, Reliance Jio Infocomm is reportedly gearing up to expand the company’s product portfolio by venturing into diverse areas such as broadband services and Direct-to-Home (DTH) TV services.

Things to expect from Reliance Jio in 2017

Reliance Jio FTTH broadband services

Reliance Industries plans to spend a further Rs 18,000 crore additional investment required for its fibre network as it expands Jio's 4G reach, reports Business Standard. The Reliance Jio fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) broadband services has already been offering trials at a few locations and the services will expand to more cities soon.

Based on the information posted by users on social media networks, the Reliance Jio FTTH broadband services offers speed ranging from 70 Megabits per second (Mbps) to 100 Mbps. This is way faster than what the competition is currently offering in the market.

As with Reliance Jio, pricing would be a key factor for the success of Reliance Jio broadband services.

Reliance Jio DTH service

Reliance Jio is expected to launch direct-to-home (DTH) TV services, which will broadcast native TV channels and stream online content with the help of Jio’s broadband services.

The Reliance Jio DTH service would offer more than 350 channels – with at least 50 high-definition (HD) channels. Also, the DTH services will make use of Jio’s cloud capabilities to store content for later viewing purpose and therefore the user will get the flexibility to save the program directly on cloud, therefore, eliminating the need of external storage device.

Reliance Jio 4G VoLTE feature phone

Reliance Jio is reportedly working on a feature phone that will support 4G VoLTE services. The feature phone also purportedly sports hardware buttons to use the suite of Jio apps. The phone will be subsidized by Reliance and might retail at a value ranging from Rs 999 – Rs 1,500.

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