How Mukesh Ambani's AGM speech cost other telcos thousands of crores in 45 minutes

When Reliance Jio announced its price for data tariff as Rs 50/GB, the shares of other telcos like Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and Reliance Communications trembled, going down by up to 9%.

If that was not enough, Mukesh Ambani also announced free voice services to the active users of Reliance Jio, adding to the woes of its rivals.

Also read: Reliance Jio to launch on 5th September

Talking of market leader Bharti Airtel, it saw its shares going down by 8.99% and hit a low of Rs 302 on BSE, while Idea Cellular, the third largest telecom subscriber in India, crashed 9.09% and hit Rs 85, an all time low in as much as 52 weeks.

Within 45 minutes of Mukesh Ambani’s speech during the Annual General Meeting of Reliance, Bharti had lost Rs 12,000 crore in market capitalisation, while Idea Cellular saw a loss of Rs 2,800 crore in market value.

Also read: Airtel readies to battle Reliance Jio, cuts 4G prices by up to 80%

"All voice calls for Jio customers will be absolutely free," Ambani had said in his speech, also announcing that there would be no roaming charges, along with data being offered at Rs 50 per GB. Its rivals, in comparison, offer this much data for Rs 250.

The RIL Chairman also announced his plans of Reliance Jio covering 90% of India's population by March next year, as compared to its present coverage of 18,000 cities and over two lakh villages.

"We expect Jio to garner 35 million subscribers over the next two years, with data volume growth for incumbents slowing to 50 per cent in FY17E from 70 per cent in FY16," said a note from Goldman Sachs.

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