Mukesh Ambani sees Jio making 18-19% profit: report

Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani has said that the group's telecom venture Reliance Jio is not a losing proposition nor is it looking for killer returns, adding that Jio will give 18-19 per cent returns for sure.

Reliance Jio, which made a big push into telecom business on 5 September promising free voice calls and free national roaming and rock-bottom data prices, is looking at long term, The Times of India quoted Ambani as saying in an interview.

While incumbent operators like Airtel, Idea and Vodafone have their own problems, Ambani said the telecom market is all about customer experience, regulations and a vast opportunity that lies ahead and that there is no other way than competition to secure market share.

On the issue of Jio customers facing call drops, Ambani said these will be rectified soon and Jio customers will ''figure out that nothing is wrong with the service''.

''It is there in the licence that you are supposed to provide inter-connect. In fact, you are supposed to provide it irrespective of the traffic,'' the report quoted Ambani as saying.

Ambani hinted that telecom companies ''cannot break the law beyond a few weeks''.

Reliance Jio 4G services offers free voice calling on Jio phones for life and post 31 December, it will be offering 10 data plans starting at Rs19 a day for occasional users, Rs149 a month for low data users and Rs4,999 a month for heavy data users.

Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (Jio) has built a world-class all-IP data strong future proof only 4G network. It is built for the internet and the only network conceived and born as a Mobile Video Network from the ground up. ''Jio will bring transformational changes in the Indian digital services space to enable the Honourable Prime Minister's vision of Digital India for 1.2 billion Indians,'' the company sated on its launch.

Jio has intimated the Department of Telecommunications (DOT), Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and the security agencies regarding the commencement of its wireless telecommunication services in all 22 service areas from 5 September 2016. The company has also filed the tariff plans for wireless services with TRAI. With these steps, the company has fulfilled all the requirements of Unified Licence for commencement of services.

Jio's tariff plans transparently convey that all subscribers under the 'Jio Welcome Offer' will be entitled to certain special benefits. These benefits comprise of access to unlimited LTE data and national voice, video and messaging services, including national roaming, along with  the full bouquet of Jio applications and content, completely free up to 31 December 2016.

Jio Welcome Offer has been designed to ensure that: every Indian enjoys Jio Digital Life and do Datagiri;  users get to experience and gets comfortable with Jio's digital services; users personalise Jio's offerings in a manner that best fits his usage; Jio gets to test and stabilise its interconnect with other operators and to ensure superior voice quality for calls to other networks; and Jio and Jio customers get to co-create and build the best network experience together.