Jio leads in 4G download speed in Nov; Vodafone in upload: Trai

 

Dependence Jio beat the 4G speed graph with information download pace of 20.8 megabit every second (Mbps), while Vodafone was in front of others in transfer speed at 6.5 Mbps in November, as per the most recent information update of telecom controller Trai.

Jio recorded more than twofold the download speed of its nearest rival Vodafone.

However, Vodafone and Idea Cellular have consolidated their versatile business as Vodafone Idea Limited, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Tri) is as yet delivering separate organization speed information of both the substances.

Vodafone recorded download speed of 9.8 Mbps in November, as per Trai's information refreshed on December 10. It was trailed by Idea and Bharti Airtel with download speed of 8.8 Mbps and 8 Mbps, individually.

Vodafone bested the graph in the transfer portion with network speed of 6.5 Mbps. It was trailed by Idea with transfer speed of 5.8 Mbps, Airtel 4 Mbps and Jio 3.7 Mbps.

The download speed helps customers in getting to content from the web while transfer speed encourages them in sending or sharing pictures, video and so on to their contacts.

The normal speed is registered by Trai dependent on the information it gathers across India with the assistance of its MySpeed application consistently.

Uptick in ARPU helps Bharti Airtel trump Reliance Jio in Q3 numbers

The Bharti Airtel stock was up 9 per cent and hit a fresh all-time high after the company reported a better than expected performance in the March quarter, led by India's wireless segment. The price hikes that came into effect in December resulted in a 14 per cent jump in average revenues per user (ARPU) on a sequential basis. The metric at Rs 154 is the highest in 12 quarters. This helped the company report a 10 per cent uptick in India business and an 8 per cent increase at the consolidated level. India accounts for three-fourths of Bharti’s consolidated revenues.
With wireless subscribers almost at the same level as in Q3FY20, revenue growth for the India mobile business on a sequential basis was driven entirely by the increase in ARPUs. Most brokerages had expected a 7-10 per cent sequential growth in ARPUs. Bharti’s wireless segment operational performance was better than Reliance Jio according to analysts at IIFL.
“Adjusted for the interconnect usage charge (IUC), we estimate that Bharti’s service revenue growth was upwards of 16 per cent as compared to the estimates for Jio’s service revenue growth of 4.7 per cent.” The outperformance came in despite the fall in IUC revenues, as Jio charges on off-net calls after given talk time while 4G data plans of Bharti offers unlimited voice calls. Reliance Jio (RJio) had reported a 1.7 per cent quarter-on-quarter increase in ARPUs in the March quarter to Rs 130.6. While analysts had expected Bharti to post better ARPU growth than RJio given that Bharti has a lower proportion of subscribers on longer duration plans, the extent of ARPU increase came as a surprise, says IIFL Securities.

While India mobile subscriber base growth was somewhat flat at 283 million, there has been a robust 10 per cent growth in 4G subscriber base to 148 million. Share of 4G customers has crossed the halfway mark for the first time. Given the price hikes, this growth comes at a higher tariff bracket. Data traffic, too, has seen a decent growth of 16 per cent sequentially as compared to 6 per cent growth for RJio.

Asia's richest man Mukesh Ambani adds $18 billion to his fortune in 2019

Election News
It's been a decent year for Asia's most extravagant man, Mukesh Ambani. The Indian head honcho added nearly $17 billion to his riches as of Dec. 23, the most in Asia, taking his total assets to about $61 billion, as indicated by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. In correlation, Alibaba Group originator Jack Ma's total assets developed $11.3 billion, while Jeff Bezos lost $13.2 billion.
The flood in Ambani's fortune this year was filled by a 40% bounce in the portions of his Reliance Industries Ltd., an aggregate that is rotating more toward shopper contributions than its center oil refining and petrochemicals organizations. The meeting in the stock is more than twofold the increases for India's benchmark S&P BSE Sensex file during the period. Financial specialists are heaping cash on Reliance, wagering more current organizations, for example, media communications and retail could before long open worth. With an objective of building a neighborhood internet business monster to challenge any semblance of Amazon.com Inc. in India, Ambani has spent nearly $50 billion - generally obligation - on a remote bearer that is become India's No. 1 inside three years of introduction.
"Mukesh Ambani changed the story for Reliance Industries" as a pioneer in oil and gas as well as in telecom and retail, and potentially soon in web based business also, said Chakri Lokapriya, boss venture official at TCG Asset Management, which directs $3 billion in resources in Mumbai. "He effectively recognized, contributed and executed quickly to make this new story," Lokapriya said. "We accept this can conceivably twofold investor esteem throughout the following four years."

The fresher organizations are probably going to contribute half of Reliance's profit in a couple of years, from about 32% now, Ambani said in August. A delegate for Reliance didn't answer to an email looking for input on Ambani's riches....Read More

Why Mukesh Ambani's 'cautious actions' could be a bad sign for the economy

Company News

Does Mukesh Ambani see dark clouds gathering on the horizon? From his message to shareholders, it doesn't look like India's richest tycoon is worried. But his actions may reveal more than his words.
At Monday's annual general meeting, the chairman of Reliance Industries Ltd was brimming with optimism. Not only did he endorse Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of bumping up annual GDP by 80% in five years to $5 trillion, he even forecast a $10 trillion Indian economy by 2030. It's not only possible but "inevitable," he said.
Something doesn't add up. If the outlook is so rosy, why is Ambani hitting the brakes on a seven-year, $100 billion investment spree across refining, petrochemicals, telecom and retail? While a breather after such frenzied activity may be understandable, why does he want Reliance to be a zero-net-debt company in 18 months? What will it mean for the more than 100 banks and financial institutions around the world that provide India's largest company and its subsidiaries with billions of dollars – and yen, and rupees – in financing and refinancing? Above all, what will Reliance's deleveraging mean for India?
In retrospect, I tackled the last question prematurely in October 2016 when Reliance was shouldering 13% to 14% of the entire investment by India's top 1,250 listed companies as well as Indian Railways and state-owned electricity boards. My conclusion then was that if Ambani took a yearlong vacation, India’s growth outlook could dim.

 What I didn't anticipate was that starting a 4G mobile network with lifetime free voice calls and dirt-cheap data was just the beginning rather than the end of Ambani's telecom ambitions. The goal of Reliance Jio was to acquire at least half of India's 1 billion-plus mobile customers, and that required continued spending...Read More

Aramco to buy 20% in RIL chemical biz for $15 bn; GigaFiber launch on Sep 5

Company News

Reliance Industries Ltd is set to sell a 20 per cent stake in its oil to chemicals business to Saudi Aramco in one of the largest foreign investments in the country, Reliance Chairman Mukesh Ambani said on Monday. Ambani also announced the commercial launch of Jio Fiber on September 5, with the base plan starting at a speed of 100 MBPS and going up to 1 GBPS with prices ranging from Rs 700 to 10,000 per month.
Aramco to take 20% in Reliance's refinery, chemical biz
Ambani on Monday announced that Saudi oil giant Aramco has agreed to take a 20 per cent stake in his flagship Reliance Industries' oil refinery and chemical business at an enterprise value of $75 billion (around Rs 5,32,466 crore).Making the announcement at Reliance Industries' 42th annual general meeting, he said this would be the biggest foreign investment in the history of the company.
As part of the deal, Saudi Aramco will supply 500,000 barrels per day or 25 million tonnes per annum, of crude oil to Reliance's twin refineries at Jamnagar in Gujarat.Saudi Aramco will take 20 per cent stake in a proposed special purpose vehicle (SPV) housing the twin refineries of Reliance as well as the firm's petrochemical complex.
Reliance operates two refineries in Jamnagar, Gujarat, with a total capacity of 68.2 million tonnes per annum.It plans to expand its only-for-exports special economic zone (SEZ) refining capacity to just over 41 million tonne from current 35.2 million tonne but does not have any plans to set up a new refinery in the country.
It is currently focused on expanding petrochemical and telecom business.

Jio pan-India broadband service launch from Sept 5...Read More

RP takes over RCom board; corporate insolvency resolution process to resume

Company News

Following the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) directive, Reliance Communications (RCom) on Wednesday informed the stock exchanges that the administration of the corporate debtor would be taken over by the interim resolution professional (RP) and the corporate insolvency resolution process (CIRP) would resume.

“The powers of the board of directors or the partners of the corporate debtor, as the case may be, shall stand suspended and be exercised by the interim resolution professional,” the company said in the filing.

The NCLT has also directed the interim RP to file a progress report of the CIRP. The next hearing is on May 30.

Operational creditor Ericsson, in September 2017, had originally filed for insolvency proceedings against RCom. This was accepted by the NCLT over RCom's failure to pay dues to the tune of Rs 1,500 crore. However, it was later stayed by the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) as both parties reached a settlement, with RCom agreeing to pay Rs 550 crore to Ericsson by September 30, 2018.

Meanwhile, RCom moved the Supreme Court, seeking an extension of the deadline to pay the amount to Ericsson because of a delay in completion of spectrum sale and other assets, to which the apex court granted it time till December 15, 2018.

After RCom had failed to pay the agreed amount, Ericsson moved the apex court wherein the court ordered Anil Ambani, Reliance Telecom Chairman Satish Seth, and Reliance Infratel Chairperson Chhaya Virani to pay Rs 453 crore within four weeks (March 18, 2019) or face a jail term of three months.

Ambani had paid by the deadline.

 Ericsson was opposed to RCom’s move of undergoing insolvency proceedings as it would then have to let go of the money it received.

Reliance Jio approaches DoT for in-flight connectivity licence: Report

Company News

Reliance Jio Infocomm has approached the telecom department for in-flight connectivity licence, that allows service providers to offer connectivity and data services to Indian and foreign airlines, according to sources.

Besides Jio, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has also received a clutch of other applications including those from Ortus Communications, Station Satcom and Cloud Cast Digital, sources privy to the development told PTI.

Reliance Jio, however, declined to comment on a questionnaire sent in this regard.

Sources, meanwhile, said that in some of the cases including that of Ortus Communications, the DoT has sought some clarification on the application submitted.

After the government notified rules for in-flight and maritime mobile phone services in December last year, a number of companies including Bharti Airtel, Hughes Communications India, and Tatanet Services queued up for the said licence.

In February this year, Hughes Communications India (HCIL) became the the first company to be granted the in-flight and maritime connectivity licence in the country. The following month, Tatanet Services, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Nelco, announced that it had obtained in-flight, maritime connectivity licence from the government.

Most recently, the DoT issued a 10-year licence to Bharti Airtel subsidiary Indo Teleports Ltd to provide such services.


According to Euroconsult, over 23,000 commercial aircraft will offer connectivity to their passengers by 2027, up from 7,400 aircraft in 2017.

Mukesh Ambani in Foreign Policy’s 2019 list of top ‘100 Global Thinkers’

Current Affairs:

Reliance Industries Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani featured in Foreign Policy magazine’s 2019 annual list of the top ‘100 Global Thinkers’.

According to the magazine, Ambani, who displaced Jack Ma in 2018 as Asia’s richest man is credited with accelerating a smartphone internet revolution in the world’s largest democracy.

“With a fortune of $44.3 billion, Mukesh Ambani displaced Jack Ma in 2018 as Asia’s richest man. Ambani’s fortune comes from his holdings in the oil, gas, and retail sectors, but he’s likely to make his biggest impact on India through his new telecom venture Jio,” the magazine said on its website.

  India shall lead the world in digital connectivity soon, says Mukesh Ambani

“By offering cellular data and voice free for the first six months after Jio’s launch, Ambani got more than 100 million Indians to sign up-accelerating a smartphone internet revolution in the world’s largest democracy. The next stage of Ambani’s plan is to use the digital airwaves to sell content and lifestyle products, eventually competing with Google and Facebook…Read More