INTRODUCTION TO JIO

v   Jio

Jio soft launched on 27 December 2015 (the eve of what would have been the 83^rd birthday of Reliance Industries founder Dhirubhai Ambani), with a beta for partners and employees, and became publicly available on 5 September 2016. As of 31^st January 2019, it is the third largest mobile network operator in India and the ninth largest mobile network operator in the world with over 289.44 million subscribers. In June 2015, Jio announced that it would start its operations all over the country by the end of 2015. However, four months later in October, the company’s spokesmen sent out a press release stating that the launch was postponed to the first quarter of the financial year 2016–2017.

 

v   JIO logo

The logo of Reliance Jio has a hidden symbolism in it. When you flip the Jio logo around, it is read ’oil’. The Jio logo seems to represent the past and future of Reliance. Oil is what had propelled Reliance to become India’s biggest company in the 20th century. When flipped over into the History into 21st century it's probably going to be Jio.

v   LAUNCHING OF JIO

The 4G services were launched internally to Jio’s partners, its staff and their families on 27 December 2015. The closed event was witnessed by more than 35000 RIL employees some of whom were virtually connected from around 1000 locations including Dallas in the US.

                                           

The company commercially launched its services on 5 September 2016. Within the first month, Jio announced that it had acquired 16 million subscribers. This is the fastest ramp-up by any mobile network operator anywhere in the world. Jio crossed 50 million subscriber mark in 83 days since its launch, subsequently crossing 100 million subscribers on 22 February 2017. By October 2017 it had about 130 million subscribers.” The idea of Jio was first seeded by my daughter, Isha, in 2011. She was a student at Yale (in the US) and was home for holidays. She wanted to submit some coursework and she said, ’Dad, the internet in our house sucks’,” Mukesh Ambani recalled lately in press.

On 5 July 2018, fixed line broadband service named Gigafiber, was launched by the Reliance Industries Limited’s chairman Mukesh Ambani, during the company’s Annual General Meeting.

          

v   Impact of Jio Launch

Over a very short span of time, Reliance Jio became a phenomenon in India. Reliance’s shares, having languished for several years, took off in early 2017 after it said Jio would emerge from its trial period and begin charging for service. The shares have almost doubled since then

A price war arose between telecommunication operators and people were able to access services at very cheap rates.

v   Impact on Citizens

1. People suddenly had access to unlimited free voice call, 4G data, messaging and related services. Jio spread out like a phenomenon in the nation, acquiring about 1000 customers per minute. Within 83 days of its launch, it crossed the 50-million subscriber milestone, which had taken Airtel 12 years, and Vodafone and Idea 13 years.

2. 77% of the population of upper triangle of the country use Jio services of which 83% belongs to youth (20-40 age groups).

3. Data consumption has increased drastically after Jio and people are more aware about services like entertainment, education, shopping, payment and booking, etc.

4. From a nationwide survey, the result showed that 86.3% people consumed mobile data up to 10 GB only, before Jio came into the Indian market whereas the contribution of people with more than 10+ GB data consumption was only 13.7%. After Jio entrance, the mobile data consumption of more than 10 GB, increased drastically by 383% with market share increased from 13.7% to 65.9% clearly showing the effect of Jio towards the usage of the internet services.

5. India is now the top country in data consumption compared to 155th before Jio launch.

                      

6. Many government processes are now completely digitalized, leading to decreased expenditure and time spent.

7. There has been accusations of data breach due to increased AADHAR usage.

8. Aggressive ad campaign of reliance Jio may also affect the industry’s scenario. It will difficult for other player to grow their consumer base and it will lead to high promotional expenses.

 _by,

_{Omkar Khaladkar.}