Here's everything you can expect to hear from Reliance Jio at the RIL AGM on July 21. Apart from details on the much awaited Jio 4G handset, we include some exclusive info on Jio’s revenues from Prime memberships and Jio’s Fiber-to-The-Home broadband services. Take a look
Reliance Industries will be holding its Annual General Meeting tomorrow, July 21, in Mumbai. While the company will announce its Q1 (FY 2017-18) financial results today, post trading hours, details about what’s next for one of the company’s most ambitious projects – Reliance Jio – will be made public by Chairman Mukesh Ambani at the AGM tomorrow. Here’s what you can expect from RIL’s telecom arm at tomorrow’s big meeting:
Cheapest Jio VoLTE phone: Features, specs, OS, price and more
If you have been keeping up with the news, you would know that Jio stands at the cusp of yet another disruption in the telecom market, but this time it won’t come from its tariff plans. The company is expected to announce the cheapest ever VoLTE enabled feature phone in India. But get this, the phone is expected to run on a custom operating system (KAI OS). The phone will be able to support features like video calling and even a voice assistant. Jio may make its host of apps such as Jio Money, Jio Music and Jio Movies, available on the handset. The most disruptive part of the entire deal will be the pricing of this Jio phone. Industry sources point out that Reliance will be heavily subsidising the VoLTE feature phone to bring its price down to Rs 500. However, some reports also suggest that the price will remain within the Rs 1000 – Rs 1500 price bracket, which seems more likely. We now know that Intex will be manufacturing the 4G feature phone for Jio in India. Images and specifications of the alleged Lyf-branded Jio phone were leaked a while back. The handset is shown sporting a 2.4-inch colour screen, coupled with a standard T9 keypad and a dedicated flashlight button. The feature phone reportedly offers 512MB RAM, 4GB flash storage, expandable up to 128GB. There is also a front VGA camera and a 2MP rear camera. You can read all about Jio 4G phone leak here. Further, a new PTI report also points out that Reliance Jio will announce its plans to sell 200 million 4G phones priced between Rs 1000 – Rs 1500 in the next two years.
Jio Fiber-to-home broadband services: Cities, plans, pricing and more
Jio’s next big service offering will be its GigaFiber roll-out, details of which are expected to be announced at the RIL AGM. Also known as Fiber-To-The-Home (FTTH), the broadband service will offer speeds up to 1Gbps and is expected to launch with 100GB free data per month, for three months. We are told that Jio has its fiber infrastructure already in place across several cities in India. A tweet from JioCare had confirmed that the service will be available in six cities of Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, Ahmedabad, Jamnagar, Surat and Vadodara at the time of launch. As far as Jio’s Fiber service in Delhi-NCR is concerned, a source tells us that the same will start rolling out in Noida, before it reaches Delhi and Gurgaon. We have found two users, one from our own team, who lives in Tardeo, Mumbai, and has already subscribed to Jio’s services. Our team member confirmed that Reliance Jio had wired up his colony since November, last year. Jio is reportedly charging a refundable security deposit of Rs 4,500 for installation. JioFiber users can expect to get 100GB data at 100Mbps for three months, similar to the VoLTE rollout.
New Jio tariff plans, insights on Jio services
A source tells us that it is unlikely that Reliance Jio will announce any new prepaid or postpaid tariff plans for existing or new customers. As per the source, Jio does not plan to give a big stage to these tariff announcements for now and that the same will be communicated to customers via updates on its website and other platforms as and when any new offers arrive. However, Jio may share some important insights on its services at the AGM. Industry sources tell us that Jio will report advanced revenue liabilities of Rs 19.47 billion for the end of FY-2017 and this is all thanks to its Prime membership programme. In essence, it means that Jio has received the money but has not yet earned it and it has an obligation (a liability) to deliver the related goods or services in the future, in this case, Prime services. Our sources also tell us that Jio made Rs 6.2 billion as overall subscription fee collected from Prime memberships and Rs 13.3 bn as collections from first recharges done by 72 mn Prime customers.
So this all that we expect to hear from Reliance Jio at the Reliance Industries’ AGM tomorrow. Let us know your thoughts on the announcements. Which Jio goodies are you most excited to hear about?
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Adamya Sharma
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