“We believe India has a unique opportunity to surpass the world and become a leader in delivery of digital content,” claims RIL chairman and CEO Mukesh Ambani in Reliance Industries’ Annual Report for FY13, adding that its company, Reliance Jio Infocomm, plans to offer fast Internet connectivity on a pan-India basis, and also enable “end-to-end solutions that address the entire value chain across various digital services in key domains of national interest such as education, healthcare, security, financial services, government-citizen interfaces and entertainment.”
To that end, Ambani says that RJIL has finalised key agreements with its technology partners, service providers, infrastructure providers, application partners, device manufacturers and other strategic partners for the 4G project. The report says that RJIL has completed the detailed planning for a pan-India implementation of the infrastructure needed for the project, which is yet to see the light of day.
Which services is RIL going to focus on? Nothing explicit in the report, but in terms of where RIL wants to go, there are indicators. The report says that “broadband access to people can truly transform lives of Indians by getting access to a wide array of offerings, such as access to internet, email, voice and video communications, news, productivity, social networking, games, education, health and fitness, finance, travel, e-commerce, e-governance and homeland security services.”
RIL plans to use TDD LTE technology to provide connectivity and related digital services to its customers. (Read our compilation of everything on Reliance Jio).
Some more notes from the Annual Report:
– Jio Companies: RIL has listed four associate companies or joint ventures under Jio brand – Reliance Jio Private Limited, Reliance Jio Cloudworks Private Limited, Reliance Jio Electronics Private Limited and Reliance Jio Media Private Limited. It has 50% stake in all these companies and has subscribed to 5,000 shares in each of this joint ventures. It’s possible that the other 50% is owned by RJIL. RIL hasn’t however disclosed any specific information on these joint ventures, although we noticed that the company has parked respective domains for these companies. That being said, its also possible that RIL has parked these domains to prevent cybersquatting (we checked).
– Extramarks Education: RIL has 4.6 million equity shares worth Rs 10 each of Extramarks Education, as of March 31, 2013 and has invested Rs 125 crore in the company as of March 31, 2013. RIL had picked up 38.5% stake in Extramarks Education in November 2011.
– VC Firm GenNext Ventures: RIL has invested Rs 200,000 in a VC firm GenNext Ventures and has a 50% stake in the company. It also has a fully owned subsidiary company called GenNext Innovation Ventures Limited and another subsidiary Kaizen Capital LLP, in which RIL owns 49.98% stake as of March 31, 2013.
– Payments Firm: RIL also has a payment solutions subsidiary Reliance Payment Solutions Ltd, setup in 2007, which currently offers two types of solutions – a prepaid card called R-Pay card which allows users to load money, pay for their purchases and send money to other R-Pay users and to Bank accounts and a digital wallet service called R-Pay Wallet which securely stores the user’s R-Pay Card, credit, debit cards and bank accounts details and enables payments at various online and physical merchants.
The service currently offers two types of accounts – R-Express which allows users to load up to Rs 10,000 per month and R-Premium which allows users to load up to Rs 50,000 on daily basis. Reliance Payment Solutions has reported a total revenue of 0.04 crore and a loss of 0.01 crore for FY13, so we can’t be sure if it is still operational.
– On Broadcasting: The report points towards the move by the government to put in a new policy framework for “licensing, spectrum management and migration to digital addressable systems in broadcasting. The policy envisions providing secure, reliable, affordable and high quality converged telecommunication services anytime, anywhere under one licence for accelerated inclusive socio-economic development.” Its worth remembering that RIL is reportedly planning to launch a Google Fiber-like high speed broadband service in the country, along with a wireless mobility service.
– Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited ownership: RIL has 479.76 million equity shares worth Rs 10 each of RJIL (erstwhile Infotel Broadband Services Limited), which amounts to a total Rs 4,798 crore investment as of March 31, 2013. It also picked up 264.7 million Cumulative Redeemable Preference Shares worth Rs 10 each of RJIL, for Rs 2,647 crore in FY13. RIL currently owns 95% stake in the venture, having acquired Infotel Broadband in June 2010, after it secured pan-India BWA Spectrum for Rs 12,847.7 crore during the 2010 BWA Auctions.
– RJIL revenues for FY13: surprisingly, RJIL reported total operational revenues of Rs 408 crore for FY13, up from Rs 35 crore in FY12. This includes an Other Income of Rs 41 crore for FY13, up from Rs 39 crore in FY12.
– Infotel Telecom: RIL also has subsidiary company, Infotel Telecom Ltd, in which the company owns 95% stake. Infotel Telecom saw a total income of Rs 0.07 crore and loss of 0.08 crore in FY13.
