Reliance Jio Infocom to focus on consumer and 5G enterprise business

Speaking at the Indian Mobility Conference, Reliance Jio underlined that the focus would not just be the traditional consumer focus of the company. Going ahead, Jio also looks to combine its focus on the consumer side of the business with the enterprise side of the business. Traditionally, Jio has most of its business flowing from the consumer mobility business. However, with the power of 5G, Reliance Jio wants to also use the massive spectrum investment as well as the power of 5G to leverage the enterprise business over and above the existing consumer business. That is a big change in the Jio strategy.

While the dates for the launch of 5G is known by now, what is not clear is the pricing. Airtel, which has launched in 8 cities (including the 4 metros) will initially price the 5G services at par with the 4G services. However, Reliance Jio which plans to launch 5G services in India around Diwali this year, has not disclosed anything on the 5G pricing strategy. What it has disclosed is that when it comes to pricing its 5G services to consumers the focus will be more on ensuring rapid adoption and less on the tariffs per se. However, that is the mass retail plan for Jio. It has another plan going on simultaneously.

Apart from its regular focus on the consumers, Jio also plans to target anywhere between 35 million and 50 million small and medium-scale businesses (call them MSMEs) as well as smaller shops and establishments. In addition, Jio is also targeting to bring nearly 100 million homes under its smart home plans to drive broadband usage. However, in both the cases, Reliance Jio has decided to approach the pricing aspect more from the adoption perspective than from the tariff perspective. The idea is to first create the franchise and then look to extract the value.

Reliance Jio is the only one among the telecom companies to buy 700 MHz spectrum during the recently held spectrum auction. Reliance Jio has committed to start 5G services in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai by Diwali this year and complete their all-India rollout by December 2023. Incidentally, Jio has also partnered with Nokia, Ericsson and Samsung to supply gear across all its key circles. Jio expects 5G device penetration to grow at a frenetic pace with an estimated 8 million 5G enabled devices likely to hit the market every month. Incidentally, Jio also plans to partner with Google to launch 5G devices.