Reliance Industries
will spend more than $26 billion across its businesses over three
years, it said on Thursday, giving few details of plans for its
long-anticipated launch of 4G telecommunications services.
Reliance, India's
fourth-largest company by market value, has been under pressure from
investors worried by its slowing natural gas business and its drive into
consumer sectors such as telecoms and retail.
Reliance has for years looked to diversify beyond its core energy business, but profits have been elusive.
Reliance
Jio Infocomm, its telecoms unit, is the only Indian company to have
nationwide permits for 4G services. Nearly three years after acquiring
the airwaves, it is yet to start commercial services.
Chairman
Mukesh Ambani, India's richest man, told shareholders at the company's
annual general meeting that he had a bullish view of the potential for
digital services in India, and the unit would more than triple its
headcount to 10,000 over next year, but did not say when services will
be launched.
"Let me assure
sceptics that my continued optimism is based on the significant strides
that we at Reliance have taken in the past year - towards engineering
and testing a world-class broadband network, and in developing a suite
of compelling and synergistic digital services," he said.
"Our
impatience to reach our goal demands a sense of urgency, but not
careless haste," Ambani said, amid speculation that the company will
make its commercial 4G network launch later this year.
Reliance Jio the telecom arm of Reliance Industries, plans to launch fourth-generation (
4G)
services early next financial year, with offerings as comprehensive as
mobile-based enterprise solutions for small-scale businesses, full-scale
mobile services and voice-over internet.
“We are still in the process of finalising a lot of things and do not
expect to launch it commercially this financial year,” a senior company
executive said on the sidelines of the company’s annual general meeting
(AGM) on Thursday. Earlier, the company was expected to launch these
services this financial year.
According to a Press Trust of India report, the company plans to
increase its staff-strength about three-fold. “From less than 700
professionals a year back, the Reliance Jio team has grown rapidly to a
national footprint of about 3,000 professionals on Thursday. And, we
estimate over the next year, we will grow the team to a national
strength of about 10,000 professionals,” Reliance Industries Chairman
Mukesh Ambani told shareholders at the AGM on Thursday.
The company has pan-India 4G spectrum (2,300 Mhz). It has paid Rs 1,200
crore as an upfront one-time fee to Anil Ambani-promoted Reliance
Communications (RCom) to use its inter-city optic fibre network
infrastructure for high-speed data services for 20 years. The deal
marked a new era of partnership between brothers Mukesh and Anil Ambani,
who had split their business empire into two separate units in 2005.
Now, Reliance Jio is also in talks with RCom to use its intra-city optic
fibre network and telecom tower infrastructure.
The company plans to provide personal Wi-Fi devices of the size of a
visiting card. These would create hotspots to connect various devices on
high-speed data. Besides, plans to provide small-scale businesses with
technology that can help these manage their store and inventory over
mobiles. It also plans to launch mobile services like other telecom
companies.
“Our offerings will be a combination of what Omnitech, Verizon and
Google offer on Thursday,” said the company executive. Omnitech
InfoSoultion is an information technology outsourcing and managed
services company that provides business-to-business solutions, while
Verizon is a full-scale mobile service provider in the US with offerings
as diverse as Wi-Fi, wireless, internet television and LTE (long-term
evolution) technology-based mobile services.
“When the company is talking about Google, the voice over internet
service could be on its mind,” said an analyst with a foreign brokerage.
In June 2010, Reliance Industries had acquired 4G broadband spectrum
from Infotel Broadband for $2.7 billion (Rs 12,848 crore) within hours
of the company emerging as the sole winner. The company is obliged to
roll out operations within five years of the spectrum allocation.
“Together with our partners, we have charted an ambitious plan for the
next 12 months and we, at Reliance Jio, foresee rapid progress over this
period towards launching our services across India,” Mukesh Ambani said
at the AGM.
