After months of speculation, the launch of Mukesh Ambani’s telecom venture—perhaps India’s most ambitious—has finally been announced.
Reliance Jio will start full commercial operations by December this year, Ambani told shareholders during Reliance Industries’ (RIL) annual general meeting (AGM) on June 12.
But India’s richest man didn’t stop at that. “I am confident that Jio will play a significant role in lifting India from its current 142nd rank on internet penetration to amongst the top 10 nations in the world,” he said as the crowd cheered, while his wife, Neeta, applauded from the stage.
RIL has already spent some Rs70,000 crore ($11 billion) on setting up the infrastructure for the 4G services, including a network of around 25,000 kilometer-long fibre optic cable network. It now plans to double this network over the next three years, covering the entire country.
This isn’t Ambani’s first foray into the telecom business. In the undivided Reliance group—the group split between the brothers in 2005—he had spearheaded the group’s telecom business, then called Reliance Infocomm. The company had launched services in 2002 with free mobile handsets and low call rates.
By December 2015, Jio will roll out 4G LTE smartphones priced under Rs4,000 ($62.4), with a subscription plan that’ll cost between Rs300 and Rs500 a month.
Here’s a quick snapshot of the list of services that Ambani outlined:
Investors liked what they heard. On the Bombay Stock Exchange, shares of RIL closed 1.36% higher than its previous close, while the benchmark index, Sensex, only rose by 0.21%.
