India’s richest man unveils broadband plan
File photo shows a worker checking wheel hubs of baby carriages that will be exported at a factory in Hangzhou in China’s eastern Zhejiang province on June 4, 2018. After months of threats and dwindling hopes the two sides would pull back from the brink of an all-out trade war, steep US tariffs on tens of billions in Chinese goods are due to take effect at midnight on July 5. (AFP) MUMBAI, July 5, (AFP): India’s richest man Mukesh Ambani, who turned the country’s mobile market upside down by offering free voice calls for life, is zeroing in on a new market — broadband internet.
Ambani told shareholders Thursday that Reliance Industries, his oilto-telecoms conglomerate, will roll out fibre broadband across 1,100 Indian cities.
“We will now extend fibre connectivity to homes, merchants, small and medium enterprises and large enterprises simultaneously,” he told investors in Mumbai.
His ambitious foray into fibrebased broadband would be “the most advanced” in the country, Ambani told shareholders at Reliance’s annual general meeting.
The announcement is likely to send a chill up the spines of India’s broadband providers as the hugely wealthy conglomerate expands its drive into internet services.
Reliance sparked a price war and a rush to consolidation in India’s telecoms market when it launched its Jio network in September 2016 by offering for lenders.
Recent data have started to show signs of fatigue as credit expansion slowed and domestic demand ranging from government-funded infrastructure investment to consumer spending looked to be softening. This comes as a deepening trade war with the United States looks set to hit China’s export machine.
A poll of 55 economists showed growth in gross domestic product likely eased marginally to 6.7 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, compared with the 6.8 percent clip in the previous three quarters. “The synchronised slowdown in domestic and external demand is likely to put pressure on economic growth in the second half,” said Lian Ping, chief economist at Bank of Communications.
Lian said he expected GDP growth to slow to 6.6 percent in the third quarter and stay steady in the fourth quarter, bringing full-year growth to 6.7 percent — above the government’s target of around 6.5 percent.
China’s Commerce Ministry on Thursday warned the proposed US tariffs would hit international supply chains, including foreign companies in the world’s second-largest economy.
Faced with a slowdown in domestic demand and the potential fallout from the trade war, Chinese policymakers are likely to step up policy support for the economy and soften their stance on deleveraging.
The People’s Bank of China, which has cut banks’ reserve requirements three times this year, has recently replaced its use of the term “deleveraging” with “structural deleveraging”, a change that suggests less harsh curbs on debt.
The central bank also said it will keep liquidity “reasonably ample”, a shift from the previous wording of “reasonably stable”.
Chinese currency and equity markets have been volatile ahead of July 6, when US tariffs on $34 billion worth of Chinese goods are set to kick in, with the yuan losing about 3.3 percent in June against the dollar — its worst month on record.
Beijing has said it would retaliate with tariffs on US products.
“On monetary policy, we expect the PBoC to ease policy further in the quarters ahead in a more proactive and forward-looking manner,” economists at Nomura said in a note.
The Nomura economists said they expected the PBoC to deliver at least one more RRR cut before year-end, likely by 100 basis points and increase direct funding to the real economy via other liquidity injection tools, such as the supplementary lending facility. vastly cheaper tariffs and data plans.
Ambani said on Thursday that Jio had amassed 215 million customers as he announced his plans to boost India’s fixed-line broadband coverage with the launch of Jio Giga Fiber on Aug 15.
“While India has pole-vaulted into global leadership in the mobile broadband space we still lag behind significantly in fixed-line broadband. Jio is determined to move India to among the top 5 in fixed-line broadband, too,” he said.