Telecom stocks extend losses on RJio fears

Telecom stocks extended losses for the second straight session on Friday, falling up to 3.5 per cent, after Mukesh Ambani on Thursday announced the launch of much-talked about Jio 4G service, offering free voice calls and national roaming.

Shares of Idea Cellular went down by 3.46 per cent to Rs 80.80 — its 52-week low, while Reliance Communications fell by 3.45 per cent to Rs 47.45 on BSE.

Bharti Airtel too lost 1.35 per cent to Rs 306.50 but later saw some recovery and was trading at Rs 312.10, up 0.45 per cent during the afternoon trade.

All these stocks had fallen sharply by up to 11 per cent in intra-day trade on Thursday, wiping out Rs 16,997 crore from their market valuation.

Reliance Industries Ltd too could not recover from Thursday's losses as the stock fell by 2.11 per cent to Rs 1,007.35.

"Whenever any late entrant in any industry adopts penetration pricing to capture the market share, it does destabilise the existing players," Samco Securities CEO Jimeet Modi said.

Storming his way into telecom sector, Mukesh Ambani, India's richest man, Thursday announced the launch of much-talked about Jio 4G service, offering free voice calls and national roaming along with what he touted as the world's lowest data tariff.

Targeting 100 million customers in the shortest span of time, he told at the Reliance Industries' annual general meeting that its wireless phone unit, Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd will offer data for Rs 50 per GB and monthly plan for as low as Rs 149.

Voice calling for Jio users will be free for life, so will be national roaming.