Jio Subscriber Base Crosses 250 Million, Reliance Picks Up Majority Stake in Hathway and Datacom to Boost Jio GigaFiber Rollout

Reliance Jio on Wednesday revealed that its subscriber base has now crossed 250 million. India's youngest telco made this announcement as part of a release announcing its quarterly results, where Jio said it clocked revenue from operations of Rs. 9,240 crore, up nearly 14 percent quarter on quarter. Net profit for Q2 2018-19 stood at Rs. 681 crore, Jio added. The company also announced it has picked up a majority stake in Hathway and Datacom to aid Jio GigaFiber rollout.

Reliance Jio said that as of September 30, it has 252.3 million subscribers in the country, with an average revenue per user of Rs. 131.7 during the quarter. Jio added that its subscribers consume 11GB of data per month on average and that the number is “growing rapidly”. Average voice consumption stood at 761 minutes per user per month, Jio said. Reliance Jio also claims to have the “lowest churn” in the industry at 0.66 percent per month.

“Jio was conceived with a mission to connect everyone and everything, everywhere — always at the highest quality and the most affordable price,” Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director, Reliance Industries Limited said in a statement. “We, at Jio, are glad with our progress towards our mission with more than 250 million subscribers on our network within 25 months of commencement of services.”

Total wireless data traffic consumed by Reliance Jio subscribers during the quarter stood at an incredible 771 crore GB, with total voice traffic of 53,379 crore minutes. Video consumption increased to 410 crore hours per month on the network with average video consumption of 17.5 hours per subscriber per month, Jio added.

In terms of Jio GigaFiber broadband services, the company said it has received “strong interest” from customers across 1,100+ cities since registrations began on August 15. “Homes are being connected on priority based on the number of requests received in the area,” the company added. “Our next generation FTTH and enterprise services are now being made available to our customers to further enhance our value proposition to our customers,” Mukesh Ambani said.

Jio parent Reliance Industries also announced strategic investments in Den Networks Limited as well as Hathway Cable and Datacom Limited. With these, Reliance has picked up a 66 percent stake in Den Networks thanks to a primary investment of Rs. 2,045 crore through a preferential issue and secondary purchase of Rs. 245 crore from the existing promoters.

Additionally, the company has picked up a 51.3 percent stake in Hathway Cable and Datacom Limited with a primary investment of Rs. 2,940 crore through a preferential issue. Both transactions are subject to customary regulatory approvals, the company added.

These investments will allow Jio to give Jio GigaFiber rollout a boost. Jio said it “will work together with Hathway and DEN and all the LCOs to offer a quick and affordable upgrade to a world-class line-up of Jio GigaFiber and Jio Smart-Home Solutions to the 24 million existing cable connected homes of these companies across 750 cities.”

Will Jio GigaFiber have the same impact that Jio 4G did? We discussed this on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.