Don’t blame Reliance Jio for industry losses, Mukesh to Mittal

Billionaire Mukesh Ambani on Friday hit back at Bharti's Sunil Mittal for blaming his telecom venture - Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd- for the industry's losses, saying businesses must stop looking at regulators and governments to guarantee their profits. Calling 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, reports PTI.

Addressing the HT Leadership Summit in the capitaol, Ambani 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,"

Ambani maintained. This was in response to a query on Mittal's reported comments -- Mittal runs India's biggest telecom firm Bharti Airtel -- that all telecom companies put together had written down USD 4050 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," Ambani said.

"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. A little over a year ago, Ambani, Chairman and MD of Reliance Industries (RIL), launched Jio, a new fourth-generation wireless service that disrupted the telecom industry by offering free calls and cheap data on mobile phones.

Older players such as Airtel and Vodafone were forced to cut tariffs, but still continue to charge for voice calls and text messages, which are free on Jio. This together with dirt cheap data has helped it attract 138 million users. Ambani also said that Jio is ahead of schedule on turning profitable.

"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," he replied to a question on when the telecom venture will break even.