Analysis: Mukesh Ambani is dialling new Bharat with Reliance JioPhone

It is a well-accepted fact that everything Reliance Industries (RIL) does has ‘scale’, but what the recently conducted annual general meeting (AGM) of the company did, has established it as a corporate giant with ‘style’ along with substance.

Right from the town-hall styled full-screen visuals in the backdrop to the peek into the privileged footage of Dhirubhai Ambani’s journey through various milestones, to the dramatic suspense-laden announcement of the pricing of the Jio Phone as a postscript to Mukesh Ambani’s speech — all of it made for a captivating and engaging piece for shareholders and investors across the spectrum.

However, those 100 minutes of the AGM aforementioned have arguably but unequivocally begun the process of changing the economic landscape of our country in years to come.

What RIL has launched in the form of an affordable Jio Phone handset is not just a great tweak to the business model that the company is likely to follow to make itself profitable, but it could pave the way for changing the lives of millions of Indians in ways that possibly were only part of conjecture on the making of a newer India (Bharat).

Not only does the Jio Phone carry the potential to set the company’s cash registers ringing but as more people from the hugely untapped mass of the 50-crore feature phone users upgrade to smartphone usage, it is bound to redefine the addressable market for so many other businesses like media, banking & finance, retailing, discretionary consumption and agriculture. It would, therefore, be unfair and half-hearted an approach to just clamour about the impact on other telecom service providers and handset manufacturers. Read More