Reliance Jio To Escalate To 500 Million User Base In India By FY26

Reliance Jio, the Mukesh Ambani founded Indian telecom market leader, is estimated to expand its revenue market share by 47 per cent, giving it a leg up to extend to 500 million subscriber mark by the fiscal year 2026.

Jio is continuously gaining telecommunications market leadership and has till now acquired a subscription of more than 433 million users.

FY25 would reportedly strengthen its favor among 490-500 million regular customers.  This would eventually boost the subscription to more than 500 numbers, the odds standing at 506.

The fourth quarter of the financial year saw the arrival of 6.4 million new users, which subsequently escalated Reliance Jio’s subscriber base to 439.3 million by March end.

From the perspective of growth and scaling, Reliance Jio has held itself to be one of the most lucrative telecommunication industry worldwide as it sustains its subscriber and revenue share, and operates strongly at the scale end.

Following the discounted cash flow model, the telecom business leader has a gross valuation of 112 billion dollars for its digital facilities and a net estimate of 79 billion dollars to Reliance.

In spite of that, some private investors, who have invested in Reliance Industries digital and telecom platforms, may soon witness an exit, owing to the holding period of Private Equity (PE) to be 4 years. The exact numbers would be pictured post the Reliance Annual General Meeting 2023, expected to be held in June/July.

The global brokerage covers international investors in the Jio platforms at a stake of 33 per cent, estimated to be valued at 20 billion dollars. This includes 15 per cent of Silverlake, Vista, PIF, KKR as private equity investors, and Google and Meta as strategic investors with 18 per cent stakes.

As Reliance Jio continues to add telecom users, the brokerage is forecasted to rise by 2026.

This would maintain the subscriber market share of 48 per cent in India’s telecom market.

Bharti Airtel seconds Reliance Jio with 35 per cent consumer market share, and is expanding its 5G coverage rapidly along side it telcos contender Jio with a mission to rollout 5G at pan India level by December 2023.

On the other hand, telecom industries like Vodafone-Idea has already been suffering financially as a consequence of delay in fund raise as well as low network investments. Thus, the revival of Vodafone-Idea (VI) from losing shares seems quite tough.

Since June 2016, VI has noticed an unsubscription total of 190 million consumers that makes about 15 per cent of the market share. In the next one year, VI is challenged to clear off Rs. 88 billion, and its net debt lies at Rs. 2.2 trillion.

The telecom market in Indian subcontinent has undergone a significant transition, which has revolutionized in a span of 5 years from 12 competitors to 3 major players only.

Together, India’s top two mobile network business, Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel commands more than 80 per cent of the telecom users.

India has ample room for growth in the telecom sector thanks to its huge young population, avid internet and smartphone penetration, and high digital data usage.

Yet, the mobile spend in India is quite low as compared to the other Asia-Pacific regions, in view of the fact that the country has noted its GDP dropping down to nearly fifty per cent from 1.6 per cent in FY10 to 0.7 per cent in FY20.

Even so, observing a hike in mobile penetration in FY23, supposedly to be 70 per cent, there could be an expansion up to 72 per cent by FY25.

The number of smartphone users has risen to 620 million countrywide and has recorded the highest mobile data consumption of 10GB per month per capita worldwide.

80 per cent of the smartphone users reign from the budding property investment cities i.e. the Tier 2 cities of India. The nation also holds the attribute of offering the lowest prices on its 4G data services across the globe at 0.15 dollars per GB.

Proofread & Published By Naveenika Chauhan