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Amid COVID-19 lockdown, Jio sees tremendous demand for data services

Jio will focus next on focus India’s 60 million micro, small and medium businesses, 120 million farmers, and 30 million small merchants

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VoicenData Bureau
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focus will be India’s 60 million micro, small and medium businesses, 120 million farmers, 30 million small merchants, and millions of small and medium enterprises

Recording a standalone revenue from its RJIL operations, including access revenues, of ₹ 14,835 crore, Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) reported its financial performance for the year ended 31 st March 2020.

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Highlights of RJIL's earnings report:

  • Jio now holds a subscriber volume of 387.5 million Indians with wireless and wireline data

    connectivity across the country.
  • During these tough times of Covid-19, Jio says its broadband connectivity solutions along

    with Microsoft’s collaboration platforms have enabled Work From Home, Learn From Home &

    Health At Home for Indians.
  • There has been zero impact on network performance despite disruptions due to high degree of

    virtualization and network automation. Traffic surge has been handled with a combination of

    capacity augmentation and technology, reports RJIL.
  • In terms of financial performance, RJIL's standalone revenue from operations, including access

    revenues have increased to ₹ 14,835 crores with standalone EBITDA of ₹ 6,201 crores and

    EBITDA margin of 41.8%.
  • Standalone Net Profit was at ₹ 2,331 crore during the quarter and at ₹ 5,562 crore for the full

    year, showing an annual increase of 88%.
  • RJIL has recorded a subscriber base of 387.5 million (26.3% YoY growth) as on 31st March 2020, with ARPU of ₹ 130.6 per subscriber per month.
  • Total wireless data traffic during the quarter was 1,284 crore GB (34.3% YoY growth) and total

    voice traffic during the quarter was 87,634 crore minutes (21.0% YoY growth)

Commenting on the results, Mukesh D. Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director, Reliance Industries Limited said, “We are glad that we have made connectivity and operations easier for our customers in these difficult times. Every Jio employee is trained to think Customer First and that has resulted in overwhelming customer response as we are serving close to 40 crore Indians now. Jio continues to lead the digital revolution in India and the whole-hearted

acceptance of our services motivates us to keep improving every day. Jio is embarking on the next leg of growth with a path-defining partnership with one of the world’s largest digital companies, Facebook. We are together determined to make India a truly digital society with best-in-class connectivity network complemented with disruptive digital technology platforms for entertainment, commerce, communication, finance, education, and health harnessing

world’s best tech capabilities. Our focus will be India’s 60 million micro, small and medium businesses, 120 million farmers, 30 million small merchants, and millions of small and medium enterprises in the informal sector.”

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Jio Platforms Limited signs strategic partnership with Facebook: Reliance Industries Limited, Jio Platforms Limited (JPL) and Facebook, Inc. on 22nd April 2020 announced the signing of binding agreements for an investment of ₹ 43,574 crores by Facebook into Jio Platforms. Facebook’s investment will translate into a 9.99% equity stake in Jio Platforms on a fully diluted basis. Of the total investment, ₹ 14,976 crores will be retained at Jio Platforms to drive future growth. RIL will redeem OCPS worth ₹ 28,598 crores. This transaction values Jio Platforms Ltd at a post-money equity value of ₹ 436,172 crores. This would place JPL amongst the top 5 listed companies in India by market capitalization within just three and a half years of launch of commercial services.

This partnership between Facebook and Jio is claimed to be the largest investment for a minority stake by a technology company anywhere in the world and the largest FDI in the technology sector in India. And this investment is expected to enable new opportunities for businesses of all sizes, but especially for small businesses across India, and is expected to create new and exciting digital ecosystems that will empower, enrich and uplift the lives of all 1.3 billion Indians.

Concurrent with the investment, Jio Platforms, Reliance Retail Limited (“Reliance Retail”) and WhatsApp have also entered into a commercial partnership agreement to further accelerate Reliance Retail’s New Commerce business. JioMart would be integrated with WhatsApp to ensure that consumers are able to access the nearest kiranas who can

provide products and services to their homes by transacting seamlessly with JioMart using WhatsApp.

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Jio remains committed to help India fight with Covid-19 through technology During these tough times of Covid-19, Jio’s world-class broadband connectivity solutions along with Microsoft’s collaboration platforms have enabled Work From Home, Learn From Home & Health At Home for Indians.

Jio says it has tailored plans across services to ensure continued connectivity for all its subscribers.

Jio has offered:

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  • i) double data & additional offnet minutes to all mobility add on pack users,
  • ii) double data for all JioFiber users,
  • iii) complimentary 10mbps JioFiber

    plan,
  • iv) extended validity of JioPhone users for free incoming calls and provided 100 minutes call & 100 SMS to JioPhone users who have not been able to recharge, and
  • v) innovative channels of recharge like ATM, SMS/ Call, peer to peer recharges.

Jio Haptik has powered the Government of India’s official helpdesk for Corona Helpline, indicates the financial statement issued by RJIL.  Aggressive sales initiative and customer-focused approach have been launched to help recoup slowdown in subscriber addition momentum.

For RJIL, FTTH and enterprise services remain large greenfield opportunities with demand further reinforced due to Work from Home during the lockdown.

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Jio continues to see tremendous demand for data services

▪ Subscriber base as of 31st March 2020 was at 387.5 million with a net addition of 17.5 million during 4QFY20.

▪ Strong gross addition of 23.9 million during the quarter and 126.4 million during the previous twelve months with simple tariff plans offering value to all customers.

▪ After the elimination of excessively heavy voice users during 3QFY20, the churn rate has retraced to historical trends and was at 0.57% for 4QFY20.

▪ Jio continues to be a net recipient of access charges with an outgoing traffic mix within the overall offnet traffic now stable at 48-49%.  Customer engagement continues to be robust with average data consumption per user per

month of 11.3 GB and average voice consumption of 771 minutes per user per month.

▪ The process of converting initial test users to paid-plans and ramping up sales across 1,600 cities is underway. Average usage across the user base is multi-fold of current industry benchmarks.

▪ On the Enterprise side, Jio has signed marquee logos over the past few months and is in the process of provisioning connectivity services using its extensive fiber backbone and access to productivity suites of Microsoft.

During the quarter, Jio launched the Jio POS-Lite, creating a completely new pool of entrepreneurs who can serve their micro-communities as Jio channel partners, for recharges and new acquisitions.

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