Reliance Industries Ltd. will invest 2 trillion rupees ($25 billion) to roll out its 5G services in October across the largest Indian cities, its billionaire-chairman Mukesh Ambani said as he continues to expand and diversify the $221 billion empire.
(Bloomberg) — Reliance Industries Ltd. will invest 2 trillion rupees ($25 billion) to roll out its 5G services in October across the largest Indian cities, its billionaire-chairman Mukesh Ambani said as he continues to expand and diversify the $221 billion empire.
Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd., the telecom unit of the retail-to-refining conglomerate will deploy “standalone 5G” version which doesn’t depend on the earlier 4G network and hence delivers speedier connectivity, Ambani told investors in the annual shareholder meet on Monday. Reliance Jio 5G is expected to provide country wide services by December 2023, he said, adding that the service has the potential to connect 100 million homes as well as accelerate the adoption of fixed broadband services.
Reliance Jio — India’s top wireless operator — was the biggest buyer in this year’s local spectrum auctions to develop a 5G network that can boost revenue, attract high-end users and bolster its e-commerce and media ambitions. Ambani, Asia’s second-richest person who built Reliance into India’s largest company by market value, has been diversifying the powerhouse conglomerate beyond its fossil fuel-led businesses and toward technology and renewable energy.
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Reliance’s 5G service “will connect everyone, every place and everything with the highest quality and most affordable data,” Ambani said at the online event. “It will be world’s largest and most advanced 5G network.” He didn’t share tariff details.
Ambani, who did not share tariff details, said the new standalone 5G service will help Reliance Jio deliver “new and powerful services like low latency, massive machine-to-machine communication, 5G voice, Edge computing and network slicing, and metaverse.”
The wireless carrier also forged a collaboration with Qualcomm to develop 5G solutions for India, he said.
This was one of the much-awaited announcements from Ambani who has used the annual shareholder speech in the past as a platform for announcing new initiatives. Investors were awaiting details around the 5G roll out, tariff structure given Reliance’s track record of price disruption plans, as well as end-use cases.
The 5G technology has not been very profitable for Asian wireless operators despite many investing billions of dollars, including those in China which have been offering 5G service since 2019.
(Updates with details throughout.)
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