Reliance Jio: Story of 1st Network to Provide 4G VoLTE Services in India

Reliance Jio: Story of 1st Network to Provide 4G VoLTE Services in India

When do you think the telecom sector underwent a revolution? The most typical response, of course, is after Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio was introduced. With the most sophisticated cost leadership approach, this company made a grand entry into the Indian mobile telecom market, revolutionizing the whole telecommunications industry. But how do you suppose that happened?

Was it Mukesh Ambani’s strategic intentions, the business model, or investments in the company?

About Jio

When Anil Ambani and Mukesh Ambani split in the year 2005, it was one of the biggest de-merger in the industry. Reliance Infocom, Mukesh Ambani’s visionary undertaking, merged with the Anil Ambani Group. Mukesh Ambani acquired Infotel Broadband Services Limited, the sole bidder in India that successfully obtained the 4G network.

Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Limited began laying the groundwork for a high-speed optical fiber 4G network that is more capable than 4G. Reliance Jio Infocom Ltd (RJIL), more commonly called Jio today, was the corporation’s name. The first network to provide 4G LTE and VoLTE services was Jio.

On September 5, 2016, Jio made these services available to all consumers and unveiled its LYF smartphone line. Instead of emphasizing voice and SMS, Reliance Jio Infocom Ltd focused on high-speed internet. Jio first entered the market; the most well-known telecom carriers supplied 1GB of data per month. The company then launched data plans with 1GB of 4G data each day.

RJIL changed the game in India’s price-sensitive market by lowering the price of 1 GB of 4G data from its last range of Rs 250–300 to just Rs 5 early. Along with these incredible plans, Jio started providing all its Prime subscribers with free voice calls and 100 free SMS daily.

JioPhone Next

A Ganesh Chaturthi release of the brand-new “JioPhone Next,” which is being jointly developed by Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance and tech giant Google, was planned for September 10, 2021. According to sources from September 10, 2021, Reliance Telecommunication’s ground-breaking invention hit a snag because of a severe global scarcity of semiconductors and had to be delayed until at least Diwali.

The company then stated that it had already started testing the device among a select group of customers to find potential areas for improvement and make them widely accessible and error-proof in November, during the Diwali festival. With this, Reliance Jio had acquired additional time to develop effective solutions to the global semiconductor shortage. On November 4, 2021, the Reliance JioPhone Next was officially unveiled.

These phones are available for Rs 6,499, including the Android-based Pragati OS and a Qualcomm Snapdragon QM215 processor. Only consumers without the option of paying for the phone beforehand can purchase the JioPhone Next for Rs 1,999. However, they must later pay the firm the phone’s total cost in regular installments.

If you’re looking for an entry-level budget phone and don’t have Rs 6000–7000 or more to spend on new phones, the JioPhone Next is a solid choice. However, these phones have many drawbacks like:

• JioPhone Next is sluggish, being deficient in adequate RAM
• It would help if you only used a Jio sim as the primary SIM to use it
• The financer can turn the phone off if it is not paid correctly.
• It comes in with an Android OS but has its own JIO customizations.

Founders

Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani is the founder of Jio.

According to Forbes, Mukesh is reputedly the wealthiest person in India, and his family is the richest in all of Asia. One of the largest corporations in India, Reliance Industries Ltd., has Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani as its Chief Managing Director (CMD). Mukesh was raised in Mumbai despite being an Aden native. He has shared his financial savvy with the entire world as one of the nation’s most powerful and influential people.

Mukesh Ambani owns the largest refinery in the world. He is a member of many prestigious institutions and has made many accomplishments. Before his resignation on June 27, 2022, Ambani served as both a director and chairman of Reliance JIO Infocomm Ltd. His son Akash Ambani, who was previously a non-executive director, has since been named the company’s chairman, according to reports dated June 29, 2022.

The Jio board has appointed Raminder Singh Gujral and K.V. Chowdary as additional company directors. They will serve as independent directors for the ensuing five years, starting on June 27, 2022. Pankaj Mohan Pawar has been named the Managing Director of the Jio company for a period of five years.

Startup Story

When Mukesh Ambani, the founder of Jio, was questioned about how he came up with such a brilliant idea, he replied that his daughter Isha Ambani had planted the seed. Isha Ambani visited her family during the 2011 holidays while she was a Yale student in the US.

She complained to her dad about their poor internet connection because she could not turn in her assignment. Mukesh Ambani became aware of the problems India was having with its internet connectivity at that time.

Most Indians could not afford the data due to its extreme scarcity and exorbitant cost. Since then, Mukesh Ambani has been working on Jio to provide data services that are plentiful and reasonably priced throughout the nation, giving rise to Reliance Telecommunications’ Jio business line.

Jio – Name, Tagline, and Logo

Reliance Jio Infocom Ltd. is the company’s full name, and JIO stands for Joint Implementation Opportunities.

Reliance Jio Logo

Reliance’s past and future are represented by the word “oil” when the logo is turned around and seen in reverse. Due to its oil business, Reliance became a household name in the 20th century. In the 21st century—possibly the flipped version—Jio has successfully brought about another revolution.

The slogan of Reliance Jio is ‘Digital Life,’ while a famous tagline of Jio has been ‘Jio jee bharke,’ which means live life to the fullest.

Business Model

Reliance Most of Jio’s clever business tactics belonged to its founder Mukesh Ambani. Jio provided affordable Volte calling services and unlimited data for its first year of operation. Other telecom providers had to modify their business models due to the total market upheaval.

These offerings caused several major and unexpected changes in the consumer’s behavior. It also sparked many mergers and acquisitions among mobile network operators. Jio, in turn, drove people to use many services, which raised their expenditure.

Jio eventually began billing its calling services at a rate of 6 paise per minute. The business has recently introduced many value packs that include calling, internet, and other on-demand subscriptions at affordable prices that are even cheaper for Jio phone users.

Reliance did take a major risk when it first entered the telecom industry, but it has since emerged as one of the top businesses on the market.

Growth

Being an innovative business and the pioneer of India’s 4G VoLTE services, Jio has already demonstrated that it is a force to be reckoned with. Currently, India’s top telecom service provider is the Mukesh Ambani-led business. The Jio firm is trying to provide 5G and 6G services to Indian subscribers. With more than 179.93 million members, Jio is the third-largest mobile network operator in the world.

In April 2022, Jio added more than 1.6 million cellphone members to its network. The company has 52.15 percent of all Indian users, making it the market leader in the broadband sector. Jio is followed by Bharti Airtel, which has 31.61 percent of the market.

On June 28, 2022, Reliance Industries’ stock allegedly closed 1.5 percent higher at Rs 2,529 on the BSE.

In 2019, Jio introduced the fiber-to-the-home service, which now provides home television, phone, and broadband services. Mukesh Ambani declared his company Reliance Jio net debt-free nine months before the deadline when the coronavirus made conditions tense for businesses and professions. The company raised another Rs 118,318.45 crore by selling holdings in the Jio platform through 12 agreements, in addition to the Rs 53,124.0 crore it raised by giving shares to its current owners.

Reliance Jio fulfilled a promise to its shareholders in August of last year by becoming the nation’s largest-ever right issue and series of stake sales deals in its subsidiary Jio Platforms.

Reliance Industries is in what it refers to as its “Golden Decade,” and Mr. Mukesh Ambani has told his shareholders that RIL will set and meet even more ambitious growth goals throughout this decade. Mr. Ambani stated that the energy-to-telecom conglomerate was approaching a golden decade where it would reap the benefits of its largest-ever capacity development in its petrochemical industry and its investment in Jio. By including these investments, the company’s net debt as of March 31, 2020, was Rs 161,035 crore, and the money raised over the last eight weeks exceeded it. The petro-retail joint venture’s overall funding exceeded Rs 1.75 lakh crore, including selling a stake to BP.

Thirteen firms have invested in the Jio platform over the last twelve weeks, including Qualcomm, Facebook, Silver Lake (twice), Vista Equity Partner, General Atlantic, Mubadala Investment Company, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, TPG Capital, and two times.

Jio Platforms’ equity has been diluting by 25.24 percent. They want to dilution financial investors up to that amount, which includes Mark Zukerberg’s Facebook. Future investors must be “strategic investors, like a tech behemoth, for example,” according to a source involved in the deal-making process. As more consumers and small businesses move online, the RIL-FB alliance might become the main platform for India’s digital economy, opening up a $2 trillion digital market.

Jio’s success is due in part to its customer-centric approach and webscale mindset. When it successfully entered the crowded and fiercely competitive mobile industry with a free 4G voice and data service, Reliance Jio made it seems simple. In short, Reliance Jio wants to use its technology to harness the internet’s full potential and usher in the digital age. Innovative services and long-term planning will fundamentally change how quickly one may access the entire globe and how Indians think, work, live, and have fun.

On March 9, 2021, Reliance Jio announced ambitions to change more than 50 million small and medium-sized enterprises in India through integrated fibre connection and digital solutions. In a statement, Reliance Jio stated: “According to this proposal, Jio connectivity will be available to Indian MSMEs at one-tenth (1/10) of the going rate. Additionally, they can work with Jio partners to obtain simple-to-use solutions.”

In accordance with rumors dated March 8, 2021, Reliance Jio announced the debut of its new product JioBook. The product is thought to be in the Engineering Validation test stage after years of conjecture. The JioBook laptop is touted as being inexpensive and likely to draw large crowds of buyers. The laptop would cost starting at INR 10,000 and above, according to rumors.

According to reports, on March 2, 2021, Reliance Jio won India’s $11 billion airwaves auction. Of the entire Rs 778.2 billion raised in the most recent spectrum auction, Rs 571.23 billion ($7.8 billion) went to Reliance Jio to purchase airwaves. Bharti Airtel, one of Jio’s rivals, spent $2.6 billion, and Vodafone PlcIndia . ‘s unit purchased spectrum for Rs. 19.9 billion.

Some of the popular Jio Apps that customers can now find are:

• Jio Pages – A Jio-launched web browser for Android mobiles
• Jio Chat – JioChat is an instant messaging and video calling app for Jio users.
• Jio Cinema – An online HD video library by Jio, designed to provide the users with movies, tv shows, and music videos online
• Jio Cloud – A safe and secure cloud storage service from Jio
• Jio Health – A health services app from Jio
• JioNews – A news app or e-reader for news by Jio
• JioMeet – A video-conferencing platform from Jio
• JioMoney – A mobile wallet for the Jio customers
• JioSaavn – Provides online and offline music streaming in English and Indian languages.
• JioSecurity – A mobile security and antivirus app
• JioTV – A streaming service brought by Jio
• JioCall (Jio4GVoice) – A video calling feature for the fixed-line number of customers
• MyJio – A Jio account using which the Jio users can manage their Jio account and digital services

Jio has a list of other products and services. Here are the important ones to know about:

• Mobile broadband service
• JioFiber
• JioBusiness
• JioNet Wi-fi
• JioPhone Next

Competitors

Many telecommunications companies have succeeded in India’s telecommunications market for years. Their competitors include Airtel, Idea, Vodafone, and others that have earned consumers’ trust through time. To adapt to Jio’s unconventional strategy, they had to move quickly and make major adjustments to their business models, strategies, and operational procedures.

Due to the market upheaval brought about by Jio, small operators like Aircel, Tata Teleservices, and Telenor were forced to cease operations in India. Since the launch of Jio, the earnings of other telecom companies have significantly reduced. To create Vodafone Idea, Idea and Vodafone had to unite eventually.

Future Plans

In a recent interview, Mukesh Ambani said Reliance Jio concentrates on increasing the teledensity in rural and isolated areas. The company continues to see an increase in the demand for telecom services and provides more comprehensive digital offerings.

On February 23, 2021, Reliance Jio intended to invest over $950 million in constructing a data center in Uttar Pradesh. A self-contained renewable energy facility will power this facility.

The business may transition from providing digital telecom services to becoming a player in the digital services market, including agriculture, healthcare, and education services.

Jio wants to be a driving force behind the intro of 5G services in India and an innovator in this area. Future Reliance Jio projects include the rollout of 5G and 6G networks and the November 2021 introduction of the JioPhone Next.