‘Reliance Jio behind fastest adoption of technology in human history’
06 Apr 2018
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The entry of Reliance Jio into the telecom sector has brought annual savings of Rs60,000 crore to its consumers and has resulted in the fastest adoption of technology in human history, says a report.
Reliance Jio has made data accessible and affordable for every user in the country, says the report. “Average price per GB of data has dropped from Rs152 to Rs10. Such a drastic reduction in data price has not only brought the internet within the reach of larger proportion of the Indian population but has also allowed newer segments of society to use and experience it for the first time.”‘Impact of Reliance’s Entry – a socio-economic analysis of Jio-fication and India’s GDP story,’ is the report by the Institute for Competitiveness, an international institute centred on the country, and part of the global network of the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness at Harvard Business School.
According to the report, Jio has managed to transform the face of the Indian telecom industry by changing the basis of competition from being voice-based to a data-based platform.
And, due to improved accessibility and affordability of data, India became the highest mobile data user all over the world within a span of just six months since the launch of Jio.
The report claims that econometric analysis shows that through widespread network effects, Jio’s entry would boost India’s GDP by 5.65 per cent, if everything else in the economy remains constant.
Jio’s entry in September 2016 changed the basis of competition by offering free lifetime calling to its consumers in an industry that derived 75 per cent of its revenue from voice.
“Instead, data became the new focal point of competition,” says the report. “Within six months of Jio’s launch, India became the highest mobile data user in the world consuming over 1 billion GB of data every month as compared to 200 million GB earlier.”
Recent estimates of the Jio network – which is controlled and managed billionaire-industrialist Mukesh Ambani - show that its users on an average consume almost 10 GB of data, 700 minutes of voice and 134 hours of video every month.
Meanwhile, debt-ridden Reliance Communications (RCom is controlled by Mukesh Ambani’s younger brother Anil) expects to reduce debt by around Rs25,000 crore following the lifting of the stay on the sale of its assets by the Supreme Court.
The apex court lifted the stay granted in favour of Ericsson by the Bombay High Court, in relation to asset sales by RCOM. It said secured lenders can proceed with the asset sales in accordance with law.
“Accordingly, there is now no bar in immediately completing the asset sales of spectrum, MCNs and real estate, and the same shall be concluded expeditiously,” said an RCom statement.
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