Reliance Jio: Airtel and Idea lost nearly Rs 15000 crore in market cap

Giving a jolt to telecom operators, Mukesh Ambani on Wednesday announced the launch date of Reliance Jio along with the data tariffs plans.

Following to this, the shares of telecom service providers Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular plunged over 6%. Ambani made major announcement on launch of Jio during its Annual General Meeting held today.

At 1138 hours, the shares of Idea Cellular were trading at Rs 87.50 per piece, down 6.42%, or Rs 6 on BSE. The company lost nearly Rs 3000 crore in market capitalisation in less than hour since Ambani began outlining charges and others features for Reliance Jio customers. 

While at the same time, the shares of Bharti Airtel were trading at Rs 311.40 per piece, down 6.16%, or Rs 19.50 on BSE. Airtel--India's largest telecom company suffered an over Rs 11,000 crore in market cap erosion by noon. 

As announced by Ambani, Jio is set to launch officially on Monday, September 5.

Before the official launch of Jio, in July, Airtel and Idea has already slashed its data tarriffs to retain its customers. 

The ambitious Jio project could make Reliance the most comprehensive provider of telecom and internet services across India - and give it unprecedented access to the country's untapped 'big data'.

Today, Ambani announced that Jio will offer free voice calls and no roaming charges. He said that Jio will put an end to charging for domestic voice calls.   

Apart from this, Ambani said that a complimentary offer of its apps worth Rs 15,000 to all subscribers for one year (till December 2017). This will include in app charges.

He also released the tariff plans for Reliance Jio which starts from Rs 19 to Rs 149 for a day plan to Rs 4,999 per month plan.  

Ambani says Reliance Jio has capacity to acquire 1 Million users a day. He said that there will also be having a simple pricing structure. Everyone will have a plan which will not only fit their pricing but data needs.

We had reported that Reliance Jio now has over 1.5 million test users on its network just over seven months since its test launch.

In July, Reliance Industries in its financial report mentioned that Reliance Jio an average monthly consumption per user is in excess of 26 GB and is increasing rapidly. 

According to Nokia MBiT study released in March 2016, this is several times higher than the average data usage currently in India which is at 753 MB per month through 3G data, while globally it is in the range of 800 MB to 1 GB per month.