Jio to become India's No 1 telecom operator by 2021: Bernstein report

Richest Indian Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd could become the country's No 1 telecom operator by revenue in 2021 and on a subscriber basis by 2022, a Sanford C Bernstein & Co report said.

Reliance Jio started operations two years back with free voice calls and data offering. It started to charge for data - voice calls to be free-for-life - last year and had amassed about 227 million subscribers to rank third largest telecom operator in the country behind Vodafone-Idea combine and Bharti Airtel Ltd.

Bernstein in the report said when it in 2015 initiated coverage of the Indian telecommunications market, it knew Jio was destined to profoundly change the landscape -- the company had national spectrum, had been building out national fibre, and had the backing of the richest man in India.

"We expected 'unlimited' voice and 'big buckets of data' to put pressure on the market forcing consolidation of the many smaller players. We even contemplated Jio could eventually surpass Idea Cellular to become the third largest operator in the country," it said. "We never expected, nor did we think possible, that it could eventually become the leading operator in the market."
"Given the current rate of ongoing customer acquisition, we think Jio could reach the leading position on a revenue basis by 2021 and on a subscriber basis by 2022," Bernstein said. "We are now convinced Jio's relentless subsidy of JioPhones will continue until this goal is realised."
Jio, the report said, will continue to add significant customer numbers as they continue to subsidise their JioPhones. Jio has consistently been adding 6 to 10 million new active customers per month. "While not specifically disclosed, our understanding is that most of these additions are due to customers taking a highly subsidised JioPhone."