Mukesh Ambani at UP Investor Summit 2018: Key takeaways and what next for Reliance Jio
Speaking at the two-day-long Uttar Pradesh Investors' Summit 2018 in Lucknow, Reliance Jio chairman, Mukesh Ambani, on Wednesday (February 21) expressed his support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "dream" of transforming the state.
During his speech at the summit, which aimed at showcasing investment opportunities and potential across various sectors in Uttar Pradesh, Ambani said that ensuring Uttar Pradesh's development is his "patriotic duty", and promised increased investment in the state.
Here are the key takeaways from his speech:
Jio to invest Rs 10,000 crore in infrastructure
Reliance Jio became one of the biggest telecom operators in the country overnight after Mukesh Ambani owned Reliance Jio invested Rs 2.5 lakh crores in setting up a state-of-the- art 4G network. However, a major chunk of this investment was used by the company to make inroads into the most populous state of the country - Uttar Pradesh.
However, despite its Rs 20,000-crore investment, the performance of Jio's network in UP has remained less than impressive. The company though is looking to change that, and during the summit Ambani announced that in the coming days the company will be investing another Rs 10,000 crore over the next three years to improve the network's infrastructure in the state.
Data for all in UP
During his speech, Ambani went on to speak about how the development of the country is dependent on the easy and affordable access to data for the youth of the state.
He said, "India cannot rise to its full potential without the rise of 22 crore people of UP... Jio is providing the highest quality data at the lowest price in the world to over two crore citizens of Uttar Pradesh. We have completely reimagined and rebuilt the next-generation digital communication services because we want to benefit every farmer, every business, hospital, school, college and university.
Jio to create 1 lakh jobs in UP
Speaking to the audience, the Reliance Jio chairman claimed that Jio had "already created over 40,000 direct and indirect jobs" in UP. However, he explained that the telecom operator and its parent company, Reliance Industries will not stop just here and create thousands of additional jobs in the coming years.
"Along with other businesses of Reliance such as retail, polyester and petroleum, Jio will create over one lakh sustainable livelihood opportunities in the state in the coming years."
2 crore JioPhones for UP
Talking about Reliance Jio's ultra-affordable 4G smart feature phone, Ambani added, "I want to make sure that every youngster in Uttar Pradesh becomes smart... Therefore, we have introduced JioPhone, which is India’s own smartphone... So huge is the demand for JioPhones all over India that there is a waitlist for it in many states. However, UP is special for me. Therefore, I am happy to announce that Jio will make available over two crore JioPhones in UP within the next two months on a priority basis.
UP a major market for Jio
As is clear from Ambani's speech at the summit, Reliance Jio is banking heavily on Uttar Pradesh to help it achieve domination over the telecom sector of the country. Jio, which has been locked in a battle with Airtel and Vodafone to gain control over the huge 2G feature phone user base in the country, is increasingly looking at UP to help it achieve its goals.
In a market where none of the other players can afford to offer aggressive tariffs like Jio - including a plan that costs slightly over a rupee a day and promises unlimited calls with 1GB data for a month - the telecom operator with its push for improving its telecom infrastructure while at the same time making its ultra-affordable JioPhones more easily available in the state is playing a game that could see rival telecom operators being caught unawares.
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