Reliance Jio Infocomm joins hands with eight global telcos to exchange products, expand reach

NEW DELHI: Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (RJIL) said that it has joined with eight global telecom service providers-- MTS, BT, Deutsche Telekom, Millicom, Orange, Rogers, TeliaSonera and TIM-- to build a new partnering operator alliance that will allow partner businesses to more efficiently and quickly bring innovative products and services to customers around the world.

Under the agreement, these companies have potential customer base of around 1 billion customers in more than 80 countries can be reached.

“Jio is set to enable each Indian to live a digital life. To this end, we have built the globally largest green-field 4G and fiber network, as well as a suite of digital services that enable entertainment, cloud, payment, and much more. We invite the best partners to work with us to co-create a Digital India," said Rainer Deutschmann, Chief Product & Innovation Officer of RJIL.

Jio is a digital lifestyle company bringing to the Indian people the power of cutting-edge technology through 4G-LTE in its network, VoLTE and VoWi-Fi through its state-of-the-art LYF devices, and an indigenously developed rich app eco-system. Jio has installed 90,000 eco-friendly cell towers that have a near-zero footprint, laid 250,000 route km of fiber optic cable country-wide, and its retail reach is spread over 1.02akh villages, 18,000 cities across all the 29 states of the country.

“Partnering becomes more and more important. We as operators can provide partners with the best networks and easy distribution to customers. And the partners enable us to provide our customers with the best and most innovative products and services. This is a perfect win-win-situation for all. Therefore I’m very happy that we were able to build this powerful alliance,” explains Christian von Reventlow, Chief Product & Innovation Officer at Deutsche Telekom.

The Alliance focusses on exchanging best practices on how to bring partner propositions to the market, on joint efforts in partner scouting and will also exchange knowledge about upcoming trends and services amongst the group. As of today, the Alliance has established relationships with 30 innovative partner businesses including AirBnB, Celltick, Disconnect, Idoomoo, Magisto, Mojio and Spotify.

The alliance is an open network of like-minded operators worldwide with complementary geographical footprints. It is covering all relevant product categories within an operator’s business, mobile as well as fixed, B2C as well as B2B. The Alliance will be expanding to additional operators soon.

“Millicom operates at the heart of the digital revolution, helping to transform the economic, business and social landscapes in emerging markets. We can do this best when we work together with others to provide a compelling digital ecosystem for customers and this is why we are excited to be part of this new partnering network," said David Gillarranz, VP Digital at Millicom.

"We believe in the positive synergy that this alliance brings to the global market. The joint forces of industry leaders create additional value for our customers and give us a chance to provide latest innovations, best services, products and client experience. We are proud to represent Russia and CIS counties in the alliance and we are sure that it is wise to face global market challenges in an alliance of reliable partners from all over the world," said Vasyl Latsanych, СMO of MTS Group.

“Orange is already committed to enabling digital startups to accelerate their growth through its in-house initiatives and its partnerships with operators or large companies. We strongly believe that this alliance will contribute and enhance our collective ability to scale up innovators," said Mari-Noëlle Jégo-Laveissière, Senior Executive Innovation, Marketing and Technologies at Orange.

“We’re always looking to expand the digital ecosystem and provide our customers with exciting new services. By teaming up with our great peers we’ll get the possibility to work with partners and access innovations that we otherwise might not have come across. I really look forward to work together and bring even more great services to our customers," said Jesper Hedblom, Head of Commercial, TeliaSonera.

“This alliance is a unique arena where the most important operators can build upon their respective innovation experiences and solutions providing also an opportunity for operators to introduce their start-up ecosystems to an international footprint," said Lucy Lombardi, Head of Innovation & Industry Relations of TIM.