The number of mobile phone connections in India rose by 1.96 million in March, after reducing by 1.06 million in February, latest data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) showed. The number of new connections have hit a 9-month high. In these past 9-months, the total number of wireless (mobile phone) subscriptions had reduced on 5 occasions, the data shows.
Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd on Friday tested its 4G network at the Techfest event in IIT Bombay campus by running trials of video calls and Jio television service, among others.
With slower than expected growth in smartphone penetration, operators and OEMs are joining hands to provide affordable mobile devices with attractive offers.
Dixon Technologies right now is a beehive of activity. It is building a new facility in Noida to make 1.3 million laptops for Taiwanese PC maker Acer. The facility must be up and running in four months. The pace of activity will only increase. Last week Dixon won a similar contract from Lenovo, the Chinese personal computer maker and the third largest information technology (IT) hardware brand in India, to assemble laptops and notebooks. Though the clientele in these two cases is Taiwanese and Chinese, Dixon is a company reaching for the stars with its feet planted firmly in the Indian government's policy.
Indian telcos have been able to garner over 20 million 5G customers in less than four months after the official launch of the service last October, according to industry estimates. With telecom operators like Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel aggressively rolling out their 5G services in over 190 cities across the country to date, India is now only behind China and the US in terms of the number of cities in a country where 5G services have been extended. Top executives in telcos say that the number of 5G subscribers in India is a conservative estimate and that it will rise as the roll-out gains momentum.
'Be it politicians, actors or from any other walk of life, I get calls from everyone saying that Bigg Boss is a great platform for their career and they would love to be a part of the show.'
In what could be one of the largest launches in the telecom services space, Reliance Jio Infocomm is set to roll out its 4G LTE services in 800 Indian cities between April and June next year.
Taking the pole position among other operators, Reliance Jio logged download speed of 19.12 mbps during April, even bettering its own performance of 18.48 mbps demonstrated in the previous month
The onslaught of Chinese mobile brands is virtually obliterating Indian brands, especially in terms of value. According to industry estimates based on excise and Custom duty trends, the value share of Indian brands (across smartphones and feature phones, operator phone sales - which is mostly Jio phones - and the value of phones smuggled into the country) has dropped to a mere 1.2 per cent in January-October 2021 compared to 25.4 per cent in the calendar year 2015. In the same period, the Chinese have established their domination, hitting a value share of 64.5 per cent, up from 17.8 per cent.
In the third infrastructure sharing agreement between firms run by brothers Mukesh and Anil Ambani, Reliance Industries' telecom arm has agreed to use Reliance Communication Ltd's intra-city fibre network to roll out 4G services.
Voice calling will be free on Jio phones for life and post December 31, 10 data plans will be offered
The highest number of requests are in Karnataka (39.18 million) and Tamil Nadu (35.56 million).
The way video is being watched and monetised is changing. This is the first thing that stands out as the penetration of smart TVs continues to rise.
The country's two top telcos, Reliance Jio and Airtel, are working overnight to undertake one of the fastest global roll-outs of 5G services in any country just a month down the line. India might be late in the game (already 70 countries have some kind of 5G and there are 698 million 5G subscribers across the world), but it's moving at breakneck speed. In his speech at the Reliance Industries AGM, Mukesh Ambani unveiled his plan to roll out the fastest 5G network in the world, starting from four metros in October but hitting every town taluka and tehsil - there are some 5,600 of them - in the country in 18 months.
Netflix and Amazon Prime gain market share at the cost of Indian platforms Hotstar, VOOT, Jio Cinema.
Kareena in a Kalimpong murder mystery, Priyanka in a Hollywood rom-com, a South Korean style western and lots, lots more on OTT this week.
The decision of the Telecom Commission to approve in-flight connectivity won't just bring cheer to the chat-friendly passengers, but even more to the telecom industry facing severe financial stress, says Nivedita Mookerji.
RIL has been talking to groups including Gionee, Huawei and Xiaomi
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries on Friday reported a 43 per cent jump in its September quarter net profit as its businesses from oil to retail fired on all cylinders, growing both sequentially and on a year-on-year basis. Net profit of Rs 13,680 crore, or Rs 20.88 per share, in July-September compared with Rs 9,567 crore, or Rs 14.84 a share, in the same period a year back, the company said in a statement. While better realisation and a sharp rise in crude oil prices benefited the old-economy business, retail saw footfalls at stores reach pre-Covid levels and per user earning from telecom business rose.
The queue for mutual fund (MF) licences has thinned down due to quick clearances by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) alongside applications being withdrawn amid regulatory changes. There were, at the end of September, only two pending MF applications: By AngelOne and Unifi Capital. By comparison, there were 11 applications lying before the market regulator at the start of calendar year 2023.
The telecom companies have billed the subscribers for the period of communication blockade which began on August 5 when the Centre abrogated provisions of Article 370 and split Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories.
Jiophone Next will be available from Diwali for Rs 6,499 per unit for customers wanting to buy the smartphone without financing option, Jio and Google said in a joint statement on Friday. Jio is also giving a finance option for the Jiophone Next where users can make an upfront payment of Rs 1,999 and pay the rest in easy monthly instalments spread across 18-24 months, the company said in a statement. "This is the first time that a phone in the entry-level category is getting a financing option.
With India rolling out 5G services, can telcos get the sizeable 350-400 million 2G customers to upgrade to 4G, or even better -- but very improbably -- straight to 5G?
Apple products are built around the notion of picking up ideas that are already common, reducing them to brightly-coloured, child-like simplicity, imposing conformity, and then suggesting that buying into that conformity means you're a seriously cool adult, says Mihir S Sharma.
The merits and demerits of the telcos' 5G strategy however is clearly dependent on the financial muscle of players, reports Surajeet Das Gupta.
'The focus needs to shift towards the ability to collect payments, particularly in tier-3 to tier-4 areas where acceptance is still lacking.'
Manu Kumar Jain, vice-president, Xiaomi, and managing director, Xiaomi India, shares his thoughts with Arnab Dutta on how the firm has put India on the forefront.
Their startup investments number 13 so far, compared to 17 deals in 2020.
The fall represented the second straight month of decline in subscribers. Users in the segment had reduced by 3.66 million in September, shrinking for the first time in seven months.
The brokerage reduced its target price for the company to Rs 995 per share from Rs 1,350 apiece. Credit Suisse said RIL's liabilities increased from $19 billion to $65 billion in four years.
The much-awaited iPhone XS, the iPhone XS Max and iPhone XR are finally here.
If you're an AR fan, the iPhone 8 Plus provides a superb experience, says Abhik Sen
Airtel on Wednesday said its customers can enjoy free unlimited incoming calls on international roaming while travelling to popular destinations like the US, Canada, the UK and Singapore.
Reliance Industries on Friday reported more than doubling of its March quarter net profit to Rs 13,227 crore as improvement in petrochemical and consumer business countered continued weakness in refining business.
The Taiwanese maker is adopting a model of setting up smartphone assembly lines in multiple cities across India.
A rare bonhomie among three private telecom companies in raising tariffs coming on the back of a bailout package by the government may have helped the telecom sector avert a crisis but the challenges haven't ceased to exist as the industry faces a cash-guzzling task of rolling out 5G networks in the coming months. The sector that provides direct and indirect employment to millions is projected to see Rs 1.3 lakh crore to Rs 2.3 lakh crore of investments in the coming years in creating robust infrastructure and building telecom and network products that have been incentivised by the government through PLI and other initiatives. After years of cut-throat competition and the apex court ruling on payment of past statutory dues left some players in the lurch, billionaire Sunil Mittal's Bharti Airtel and struggling Vodafone Idea almost in tandem raised tariffs, taking the plunge they had long been talking about.
Sunil Bharti Mittal, bottom, left, says he is fond of Bill Gates' famous quote: "Success is a lousy teacher." Back from a long foreign business trip, the founder-chairman of Bharti Enterprises talks to Malini Bhupta and Kiran Rathee about the challenges posed by Reliance Jio and how he is determined to come out on top once again. Mittal says , today, Airtel is as ready as Jio in pure-play 4G operations.
Strategic direction post-COVID-19 and further details on asset monetisation are key expectations from the 43rd AGM of RIL, analysts said.
The framework for new licences will be ready by end of this financial year.
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