Reliance Jio may receive a fresh investment of Rs 60,000 crore from its parent company Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) this financial year, according to a new report. On top of this investment, the telecom unit of RIL is expected to borrow a massive amount of Rs 1 trillion. This news will worry the top telecom operators a bit as Jio will be looking to continue the aggressive pricing strategy during this fiscal year too, which will further dent the already reeling telcos. Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular could possibly face more financial stress over the course of next 12 months.
A Livemint report added that the entire investment would be used to fasten the process of rolling broadband services to the consumers and at the same time to expand the wireless network. “RIL may have to keep pumping in money through a combination of equity or raising of debt. Though the investments may not happen at the same intensity as it happened in the initial years of Jio’s rollout, the management indicated that Jio would focus more on fibre-to-the-home, enterprise offering, Internet of things services and other digital services. These segments would need investments going forward,” an analyst based tracking RIL's developments said to the publication.
Jio has already amassed 186 million subscribers in just over 18 months since starting the operations. And at the moment, it's looking to shorten the gap between top telecom operators in terms of subscriber base by offering data at cutthroat prices over the next one year. If Jio continues subscriber addition at the current pace, it might end 2018 with over 250 million subscribers. Since the start of 2018, Jio has been adding over eight million subscribers every month, and the number will increase once it announces new tariff plans, which might happen by the end of May or in early June. Also, the JioPhone is going great guns which is the primary reason behind a large number of subscriber addition.
Reliance Jio is in the process of expanding its broadband operations to more cities. A recent report stated that Jio is now offering 1.1TB of FUP in some cities at 100 Mbps speed. The commercial launch of the service is expected to happen by the end of Q2 2018. On the whole, Jio is looking to go big in the financial year, which will dent the incumbent telcos further.
