Reliance Jio pips Bharti Airtel to become India’s No 2 telecom company
19 Jul 2019
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Reliance Jio Infocomm ltd, the disruptive shoot-up of Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Ltd, has emerged the second-largest telecom company in India by subscriber numbers, after the Voda Idea, relegating Bharti Airtel to third position, government data as of May showed.
By the end of May 2019, the telecom operator had added 8.2 million users since April, taking the total number of wireless subscribers to 323 million, data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, showed.
The data was published on Friday.
Both Vodafone Idea, which was the top operator with 387.6 million customers, and Bharti Airtel lost users over the month.
Reliance Industries is expected to post quarterly results later in the day. The company has been betting big on the unit as it diversifies from its core oil and gas operations.
Jio, which has made a disruptive entry in India’s telecom sector in 2016, offering cheap bundles and prompting shutdowns, is expected to make another disruptive entry with its Reliance Jio GigaFiber.
Reliance is expected to reveal the details of its JioFiber FTTH broadband service today at its 41st annual general meeting (AGM). Post the successful launch of its mobile services and feature phones, Reliance will be looking to disrupt the fixed-line broadband market in India. The AGM will be hosted at 7 pm today and the chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani is likely to announce the commercial launch of Jio GigaFiber.
Jio GigaFiber will again be competing with Bharti Airtel which has come up with the Airtel V-Fiber broadband service. The Airtel's service aims to deliver speeds of up to 100Mbps and is one of the cheapest broadband plan providers in India. Jio, on the other hand, is already running preview offers for its GigaFiber in select cities like Delhi and Mumbai.
The Jio GigaFiber promises lightening fast speeds of up to 100 Mbps. In the preview period, Jio GigaFiber is offering speeds of 100 Mbps over 5Ghz WiFi networks and 50 Mbps over the 2.4Ghz wireless network. Post the launch, the rumours suggest that the company might offer speeds of 1000 Mbps in select circles.
