Free Off-Net Calls Might Not Affect Reliance Jio's Operating Income: Report

Reliance Jio's decision of removing interconnect usage charges will have a negligible impact on Ebitda or operating income in the coming quarters, as per a new report. Notably, Reliance Jio was the only telecom operator that used to charge 6 paise to its customers for making calls on the other networks.

On the other hand, several research firm believes that this move is expected to decrease revenue from outgoing calls, which means this will affect revenue. This announcement comes after Reliance Jio added less subscribers in October, while Airtel added 3.67 million users during the same month.

Reliance Jio added 1.46 million users in September, which is still less than Airtel as the former gets 3.77 million customers. Notably, Reliance Jio launched in 2016 and added six million customers every month; however, these numbers are going down due to ongoing farmers' protests.

The operator has also approached the Punjab and Haryana governments due to the same reason. "As of 31st October 2020, Jio has more than 140 lakh subscribers in Punjab (approximately 36 percent subscribers in the state) and 94 lakh in Haryana (approximately 34 percent subscribers in the state)," Reliance Jio said.

Tech Mahindra Might Join Reliance Jio For 5G Networks

Meanwhile, Tech Mahindra is open to join hands with Reliance Jio for 5G networks. "The software capabilities that operators like Jio are building are likely to be offered to third-party telcos...that provides a glorious opportunity for somebody like us, who are already doing a lot with operators worldwide," the company was quoted by Business Standard.

Even though, no one knows that when Airtel and Vi will be ready to buy 5G spectrum, Reliance Jio is planning to bring 5G networks in the second half of this year. This clearly shows that the latter will attract more users in the coming days.