With intense competition in telecom sector, the two companies are rushing to diversify into other revenue streams, prominent among which are cloud services.
Ajit Mishra, vice president, Research, Religare Broking, answers your queries.
Jio's global partnerships took shape this year when Jio Platforms, a 100 per cent subsidiary of Reliance Jio which has invested in various digital platforms, was able to woo a bevy of marquee investors: Facebook, Google, Qualcomm, Intel, and a numerous PE funds.
Jio's spectrum trading pact with Airtel has enabled India's largest telco to top-up its holding in three key circles and yielded potential savings of about $400 million, according to a report. It is pertinent to mention here that Reliance Jio has signed an agreement with Bharti Airtel to acquire a portion of spectrum in 800 MHz band for Andhra Pradesh, Delhi and Mumbai circles at an aggregate value of Rs 1,497 crore -- marking the first such deal between the two telecom giants that otherwise compete fiercely in the market. Market analysts have termed the deal "mutually beneficial" and "win-win for both". UBS in a note cited Jio's spectrum buys in the 800 MHz band in Andhra Pradesh, Delhi and Mumbai in the recently-concluded auctions.
The market capitalisation of the BSE-listed companies reached an all-time high of Rs 220.74 lakh crore on Thursday, helped by a bullish sentiment in the equity market. At the close of trade, their market capitalisation stood at Rs 2,20,74,421.11 crore. The 30-share BSE benchmark closed 97.70 points, or 0.19 per cent, higher at 51,115.22 on Thursday.
With this investment, Jio Platforms has raised Rs 115,693.95 crore from some of the leading global investment powerhouses at a time when the world is deeply impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.
The telecom regulator on Friday released a list of 40 "defaulter" principal entities, including large banks like HDFC Bank, SBI and ICICI Bank, that are not fulfilling the regulatory norms on bulk commercial messages despite repeated reminders. Hardening its stance on the issue, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) warned that defaulting entities should comply with the stipulated requirements by March 31, 2021 "to avoid any disruption in the communication with customers" from April 1, 2021. "As sufficient opportunity has been given to principal entities/ telemarketers to comply with the regulatory requirements and that the consumers cannot be deprived of the benefits of the regulatory provisions any further, therefore it has been decided that from April 1, 2021, any message failing in the scrubbing process due to non-compliance of regulatory requirements will be rejected" by the system, TRAI said in a statement.
JioFiber, India's first 100 per cent all-fiber broadband service, will start from 100 Mbps and go all the way up to 1 Gbps. This will propel India to top 5 broadband nations globally.
India's traditional companies are now moving full scale into the renewable and alternative energy space that had been dominated by smaller players over the past decade. Companies such as government-owned NTPC and the Adani and the Tata groups restructured their businesses well in time to become major players in the green space. At the same time, other conventional companies, such as Larsen & Toubro and Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), which have a presence both in the energy sector as well as myriad other activities - construction, technology and retailing - are tying up with new-age companies to hitch a ride to a greener path.
While Reliance has the clout to negotiate prices with suppliers for its e-commerce, not to forget the cost advantage of integrated warehouse and supply chains, Amazon and Walmart are no pushovers, they too have deep pockets.
Reliance Industries shareholders will have to pay only 25 per cent for subscribing to the company's mega Rs 53,125-crore rights issue, and the balance will have to be paid in two instalments in May and November next year, the company said.
The entry of the deep-pocketed conglomerate is expected to heighten competition.
The Sunil Bharti Mittal-led firm on Sunday approached its competitors to set up intra-circle roaming and other processes in the way it is done by the sector to respond to disasters.
Alphabet Inc's Google has paid Rs 33,737 crore for a 7.73 per cent stake in Reliance Industries Ltd's (RIL) digital subsidiary, Jio Platforms Ltd, joining the list of global investors such as Facebook, billionaire Mukesh Ambani's firm said. The transaction also marks the US technology giant's biggest-ever investment in an Indian company. With this, Jio Platforms has raised a total of Rs 1.52 lakh crore by selling nearly 33 per cent stake to 13 financial and strategic investors in just 11 weeks.
Fitch Ratings has upgraded Reliance Industries Ltd's (RIL) rating to 'BBB', one notch above India's sovereign rating, as the company benefits from cash flow generation across diversified business segments and continuation of deleveraging. In a statement, Fitch said it has upgraded RIL's long-term foreign-currency issuer default rating (IDR) to 'BBB', from 'BBB-', with a negative outlook. At the same time, the agency has affirmed RIL's long-term local-currency IDR at 'BBB+' with a stable outlook.
Unlike the race to buy airwaves by telecom companies, airports by infrastructure companies and city gas networks by energy companies, the race to develop super apps by consumer-facing companies in India has not brushed up against any regulatory issues. Officials at the ministry of electronics and information technology and at other regulators are happy they do not have to meddle in who among the Tata group, Reliance Industries Ltd, Flipkart or Paytm will manage to build an app that sweeps in customers. Unlike separate apps a customer uses on her mobile to order groceries, buy food or airline tickets or just make payments, a super app can perform all these functions.
It is believed that apart from Bharti Airtel and Bharti Infratel, there are four players that have made a bid.
Reliance announced a rights issue of Rs 53,125 crore, which it said was the biggest in India.
Reliance announced energy asset sales worth around $ 16 billion; end of the investment cycle in telecom; bringing net-debt to zero in 18 months; value-unlocking options for real estate and financial assets; listing of telecom and retail in five years; and focus on dividends.
The deal, as well as some other strategic and financial investments in works, will help Ambani cut debt at RIL.
FB deal puts RIL on course to be debt-free next year; Reliance Retail biggest gainer from WhatsApp, JioMart arrangement.
'We always believe that if you focus on the goal, you will overcome all obstacles. If you focus on the obstacles, you will never achieve your goal.'
Of the 23 Indian billionaires mentioned in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, only one saw a reduction in net worth, with the companies owned by most of them outperforming the Nifty 50 index by a big margin.
The new entity will continue to work on technologies in areas like healthcare and education, while also looking at next-gen competencies like artificial intelligence, Blockchain, virtual and augmented reality, among others.
After a turnaround in performance by Indian equity markets since July that has seen the S&P BSE Sensex and the Nifty50 wipe out the year-to-date losses, analysts suggest investors start nibbling into stocks that are focused on the domestic economy. While they say intermittent corrections, led by policies of global central banks and other economic data, cannot be ruled out, analysts expect India's relative outperformance among global equity markets to continue as it looks better placed with a healthy economic recovery, and remains one of the fastest growing major economies. In this backdrop, Neeraj Chadawar, head of quantitative equity strategy at Axis Securities, believes that amid global slowdown, aggressive tightening by the central banks, and preference for domestic interests first (by the local government), export-oriented themes are likely to be muted or will deliver conservative returns in the near-term.
Observing there was a 'wilful default', the Supreme Court last month held Ambani guilty of contempt of court and ordered the debt-laden company to clear the dues to Ericsson.
It reported a record net profit of Rs 36,075 crore for the 2017-18 fiscal, up 20.6 per cent.
CEOs expect to finish the ongoing March quarter with positive growth as the corporates get back to work in full strength.
Jio Platforms is expected to use its 388 million mobile phone subscribers as the cornerstone of an e-commerce and digital services business to rival Amazon and Walmart's Flipkart.
The group's telecom arm, RCom, saw its shares plunge by 8.11 per cent to a low of Rs 71.35 in morning trade, while Reliance Capital tumbled by 9.91 per cent to a 52-week low of Rs 323.55 on the Bombay Stock Exchange.
Revenue soared 6.2 per cent to Rs 20,602.2 crore for the three months ended March 31, 2019.
According to rating agency Fitch, India can in the long run support five-six profitable telecom operators.
Vodafone m-pesa was one of the 11 firms that was given payments bank licence by the Reserve Bank of India in 2015.
The sharing agreement will provide more bandwidth for RJIL to provide its high-speed 4G services.
The rights issue price has been set at Rs 1,257 a share, a discount of nearly 14 per cent to the last closing price of Rs 1,459. The company had set May 14 as the record date for the rights issue, which meant shareholders as on that day would be eligible to apply. Shareholders will be able to apply for one share for every 15 shares held.
Before the pandemic hit the world and led to shutdowns, the company had received nearly half a dozen offers. But bidders are now withdrawing. They want to reassess the situation. They want to conserve cash and avoid acquisition.
Spectrum trading will happen in 9 circles.
Rs 3,050-crore penalty on Airtel, Voda Idea gets nod. Final decision will be taken by DoT.
RIL mulls launching tablets at around Rs 3,500 and bundle it with data offering 1 GB at Rs 10, a tenth of the current 3G prices.
The announcement quells fears among some telcos that Chinese players might be banned from participating in 5G trials and roll outs.
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