In August 2021, Nick Read, chief executive of Vodafone Plc at the time, did not mince his words while speaking about the India business in an earnings call. Replying to an analyst's question on Vodafone Idea, a venture with the Aditya Birla Group that had piled on huge debts and worrisome losses, Read described it as a highly stressed situation that "they (Vodafone Idea) are trying to navigate... "We, as a group, try to provide them as much practical support as we can, but I want to make it very clear, we are not putting any additional equity into India.''
Jio's adjusted gross revenue share went up by 7 percentage points in Q2FY18-19 over the previous quarter in the circles of the C category.
Investments totaling over $9.5 billion in Jio Platforms by a clutch of private equity firms, following social media giant Facebook's $5.7 billion mid-April investment in the company, helped overall.
In the latest move, the telco has reduced validity for its Rs 309/509 packages from 84 days to 56
Falling revenues, increased capex, and first full year of spectrum debt may make things worse
It, however, remains to be seen how much money Softbank actually puts in, what the implied equity valuation is and if the e-commerce venture is included in the Jio entity.
The overall wireless subscriber base increased to 114 crore at the end of June
The freebies are now over, but Jio will need to notch up subscriber numbers and margins to prove its sceptics wrong.
Given the company's expansion into internet and retail, more investments including mergers and acquisitions seem highly likely.
Vodafone Idea's (Vi's) subscriber loss reduced to a seven-month low in March, and alongside the company added 1.1 million broadband users after two months of net loss -- two things analysts have noted as key trends that need to be monitored. While Vi has been losing customers for more than two and a half years now, the churn reduced to below a million after five straight months in March, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) data has shown. "Jio's softer than usual subscriber growth in March, and VIL's slowing subscriber market share loss are key trends to keep an eye on going forward," global investment banking and financial services major UBS said in an analyst note.
Jio to charge users 6 paisa/min for voice calls made to rival phone networks. However, these charges are not applicable on calls made by Jio users to other Jio phones and to landline phones and calls made using WhatsApp, FaceTime and other such platforms.
According to JP Morgan, it seems that Jio is willing to go for the jugular in chasing market share if this hurts some of its standing rivals like Vodafone and Idea to a point from where they find it difficult to fight back.
The amount from securitisation has been utilised to repay rupee debt, saving significant interest costs for the company.
The Big Two telecom companies have accelerated their moves towards this next-gen technology, though they have chosen very different routes to getting there.
India's thriving mutual fund (MF) industry is drawing interest from several firms, with multiple applications submitted to the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) for asset management company (AMC) licences.
Payments banks are expecting to get the rights to offer small-ticket loans sometime soon, according to an industry source familiar with the matter. The industry has been in talks with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for some time in seeking lending rights.
Shares of Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) rose nearly 1 per cent on Tuesday, hitting an intraday high of Rs 2,986.05 per share, after most brokerages reacted positively to the company's March quarter (Q4FY24) results. The bullish outlook stems from Reliance Jio's potential tariff hikes, given the competitive landscape, along with slow but steady improvement in the oil-to-chemical (O2C) vertical.
Declaring that the plans will come at less than one-tenth of global rates, Ambani said Jio Fiber plans will be priced between Rs 700 to Rs 10,000 per month "to suit every budget".
The launch of services by Jio in September 2016 had disrupted the whole telecom sector, with operators matching low rates to maintain competitive edge
With new eligibility criteria for futures and options (F&O) coming into effect, Jio Financial Services and Zomato are strong contenders for inclusion in the derivatives segment, according to an analysis by Nuvama Alternative & Quantitative Research. The report suggests that these new F&O inclusions could also propel these two companies into the benchmark National Stock Exchange Nifty 50 during the March rebalancing.
Spectrum auction for mobile radiowaves services worth Rs 96,000 crore ended with bids worth about Rs 11,000 crore, according to sources. The government has put over 10,500 Mhz spectrum in eight frequency bands -- 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1,800 MHz, 2,100 MHz, 2,300 MHz, 2,500 MHz, 3,300 MHz and 26 GHz, valued at Rs 96,238 crore at base price, for auction.
While most others have not been able to replicate the WeChat model successfully, experts expect Jio to be able to score on its 300 million plus new mobile phone users.
Billionaire Gautam Adani's group is said to be planning a surprise entry into the race to acquire telecom spectrum, which will pitch it directly against Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio and telecom czar Sunil Bharti Mittal's Airtel, sources said. Applications for participating in the July 26 auction of airwaves, including those capable of providing fifth-generation or 5G telecom services such as ultra-high-speed internet connectivity, closed on Friday with at least four applications. Jio, Airtel and Vodafone Idea -- the three private players in the telecom sector -- applied, three sources with knowledge of the matter said.
The top 10 films of the year may not be great by themselves but they stand out amidst the other OTT releases.
Diverse marquee investors are becoming long-term shareholders of Jio Platforms because of a unique set of technologies and platforms under one entity.
Vodafone Idea will gradually lose market share given its weak balance sheet and limited financial flexibility, says Fitch.
The government is expected to outline a policy framework for artificial intelligence (AI) at the annual India Mobile Congress (IMC) 2024, beginning Tuesday, officials said. Apart from industry participation, the four-day event will feature booths from over 15 ministries showcasing how AI is being integrated into their departments.
Indian Railways is in talks with Reliance Jio Infocomm to allow the Mukesh Ambani-led telecom major's use of its towers. The aim is seamless mobile and internet connectivity for passengers along the 67,368-km of tracks. The Railway Board has entrusted its RailTel Corporation arm to work on the modalities with Jio. The Jio tie-up is expected to bring down its telecom bill by at least 35 per cent from this financial year.
The much-awaited soft launch of Reliance Jio's next-generation mobile services has been delayed by another month.
Jio had almost three times higher speed than its nearest rival Bharti Airtel.
To help 2G customers who have to buy a new phone to upgrade to 4G, the company had earlier introduced 4G feature phones, to make it affordable for them to make the switch.
The board of Reliance Industries Ltd on Thursday approved issuing 1:1 bonus shares -- the first bonus issue in seven years. Reliance, the nation's most valuable company, had last issued bonus shares in September 2017.
'It allows everybody to participate and controls all assets.' 'We want to have something that allows everyone to participate and control all kinds of assets.'
The Sunil Mittal led firm accused the regulator of "wrongly" holding Jio's promotional offer as compliant with the regulatory guidelines
The Jio-Bharti battle will not just be limited to mobile telephony but will extend to the fibre to home space too.
Just ahead of its mega FPO opening to public investors, Vodafone Idea (VIL) has announced closure of its anchor book allocation, raising about Rs 5,400 crore from marquee global as well as domestic investors, according to a statutory filing by the telco. This could be the third-largest anchor book after One 97 Communications and Life Insurance Corporation (LIC). One 97 Communications and LIC had raised Rs 8,235 crore and Rs 5,627 crore in the anchor round, respectively.
While Reliance Jio added 3.65 million users in May, both Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea continued to lose subscribers.
Many who track the ministry and the technology sector closely believe that the space won't see much impact on the policymaking side, but the gestation time for regulations might get long, as now there could be a wider consensus-building exercise on policy matters under a coalition government.
Reliance Jio and Facebook will look to use WhatsApp for delivering goods from local neighbourhood kirana stores to consumers before expanding collaboration in education and healthcare sector, billionaire Mukesh Ambani said soon after announcing the mega Rs 43,574 -crore deal. "All of us at Reliance and Jio are delighted to welcome Facebook Inc," he said in a short video message posted on the group's social media handles.
It is believed that apart from Bharti Airtel and Bharti Infratel, there are four players that have made a bid.
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