Roaring data demand leads Reliance Jio to expect over 50% of revenue market

Reliance Jio, the latest entrant in Indian telecom market owned by Mukesh Ambani, expects to gain over 50% revenue market share with operating margins of over 50%, thanks to huge expected data demand and growth.

As per sources, it would only take Jio 3 to 4 years to do this, however nothing has been officiated by Jio.

Also read: Airtel, Vodafone and Idea are facing the heat from Jio as they may lose upper-end customers

As of December 31st, market leader Bharti Airtel had a share of 33.1%, with rivals Vodafone India and Idea Cellular owning 23.5% and 18.7% share, respectively. They were followed by TTSL, Aircel and RCom with 6.2%, 5.5% and 4% market shares, says brokerage HSBC, after analysing TRAI data.

Also read: Jio’s back-breaking new data plans are giving rivals sleepless nights

Ever since Jio was launched, the Indian telecom industry is going through a price battle, in which data is going to play a huge role. The analyst presentation by Jio said that the company’s overall data revenue market will touch Rs 3 lakh crore in the next three-four years, because of users moving from voice to data. The move would be worth Rs one lakh crore, taking data to Rs 1.3 lakh crore in the same period.

This revenue growth in the industry would up government revenues by 50%, which is ironical since it was only last month Jio’s promotional offers cost the government Rs 685 crores.

Leading global consultants have predicted that users in India would demand data at 500-600 crore GB per month, which when calculated at the rate of Rs 50 per GB, translates to Rs 3.0 - 3.6 lakh crore per year. This is almost 1.35 to 1.6% of the projected GDP of the country. While this may seem a lot, it still lags behind the usual 2.5% in developed economies.

As per the presentation, around 400 million Indian subscribers can now afford to spend Rs 500 and above on digital services. In 2009, this average revenue per user (ARPU) was Rs 179.

The presentation also added that while the firm is capable to launch 5G services as well, it is for the time being offering only 4G services.

(Image source: VoiceNData)