Don’t blame Jio for losses, says Ambani

New Delhi, Dec. 1: Mukesh Ambani on Friday hit back at Bharti’s Sunil Mittal for blaming his telecom venture Jio for the industry’s losses, saying businesses must stop looking at regulators and governments to guarantee their profits.

Calling Mr Mittal a “friend”, he said profits and losses are risks businesses take and it is more important to find out if the country and the consumers gained after Jio.

Addressing an event here, he said that after the entry of Jio, India has become the world’s No. 1 mobile broadband market, consuming more data than users in the US and China.

“For all of us in the industry, I think profits and losses are risks that we take. I don’t think we can rely on governments and regulators to guarantee our profits or losses,” Mr Ambani maintained.

This was in response to a query on Mr Mittal’s reported comments that all telecom companies had put together written down $ 40- 50 billion of investments due to Jio’s entry. “To me, what is most important is did we move the country forward and does the consumer gain,” Mr Ambani said.

Jio results are declared every quarter now. You can see the trend. You watch the next few quarters. You will learn in January and you will learn in March — MUKESH AMBANI RIL chairman on Jio possibly breaking even ahead of the schedule

“The question... you should be thinking about is even if there are profits and losses, who gains and who loses. And as long as the consumer gains and the country moves forward, it is worth taking those losses... Some of us are big boys, we can afford that,” he added.