The September launch of Jio, the long-awaited 4G phone service of oil and gas giant Reliance Industries (Reliance Industries is the owner of Network18, publishers of Forbes India), unleashed a price war in India’s hyper competitive telecom market with an offer of a four-month free trial followed by free voice calls and messaging and low-priced data services.
Stocks of incumbents, including telecom pioneer Sunil Mittal’s Bharti Airtel, tumbled.
Mittal, who founded his Singtel backed company 21 years ago, has the most to lose; one in four Indians with a mobile phone is an Airtel customer. To fight off the fearsome competitor, Mittal bought 4G spectrum from struggling rivals for $1.2 billion and topped it up by buying more at a recent government auction.
This story is from the Richlist 2016 edition of Forbes India.
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This story is from the Richlist 2016 edition of Forbes India.
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