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What is Jio, and why are tech’s biggest players suddenly obsessed with it?

onezero.medium.com

41–50 of 108 posts

Re: What is Jio, and why are tech’s biggest players suddenly obsessed with it?

#43
TL;DR (not necessarily from the article, but from various sources):

- Jio is basically a monopoly

- It prints an absurd amount of money

- It's only "tech" because it can essentially control the smartphone market in India (INSANELY HUGE GROWTH)

- Ambani is the most powerful man in India, but also was over-leveraged on his oil business and needs capital for growth. He wants more global control/influence and US tech companies want more control over India. It's a win-win for both.

- $100B in 5 years is probably a lowball figure

In other words, imagine Google, AT&T, and WeChat all controlled by one company in one of the largest potential GDPs in the world.

Re: What is Jio, and why are tech’s biggest players suddenly obsessed with it?

#44
post #40

I can’t understand why tech’s biggest players are obsessed with it. I mean, I know what they may be thinking and why they’re salivating. But I believe they’re just behaving as if they don’t want to be left behind and seen as losers, whereas the truth (IMO, and take this with a big pinch of salt) is that this looks like the seemingly limitless amount of money pumped in by Uber or SoftBank in the hopes of “capturing th…

I am no expert in any sense but the comparison to 'limitless amount of money pumped in by Uber or SoftBank in the hopes of “capturing the market and making boatloads of money”' here is incorrect.

JIO already has a good amount of paying, repeating customers and they have the infrastructure setup and working already for 1B+ people (not subscribers).

So yeah, the tech companies might lose it but not like Uber / Wework did (IMO). Also, another important point to note is that Reliance, regardlesss of the political party, will have the backing.

Re: What is Jio, and why are tech’s biggest players suddenly obsessed with it?

#45

> Within a span of four years, Reliance pumped in over $33 billion from its other businesses to expand Jio’s market. > Jio was able to achieve these cheap rates by acquiring the only firm that won a pan-India 4G license, leveraging the superiority and cost-efficiency of 4G compared to older cellular standards, and because of the unparalleled size and resources of its parent company. [emphasis mine] > A sizable portio…

Isn't that what every early stage SV company does? Spend investor money to acquire and engage audience?

Yes and 99% of them go bankrupt when unable to return profits

Re: What is Jio, and why are tech’s biggest players suddenly obsessed with it?

#46
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And more importantly choke-hold over the government bureaucracy. They can essentially bulldoze government over any rules and regulations, and bribe around freely. This is how Reliance got big.

That may have been in the past. However ever since Modi Government came to power, industrials access to government has reduced drastically. Initial days of Modi, there used to be some fish trap to warn the officials.

"Industrial access to govt has reduced drastically"? Sorry, are you being sarcastic here? You read about how much Adani/Ambani are getting from this govt? Also the newly proposed rules for Environmental Impact? (https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/energy-and-environment/wha...)

There are two things Modi is known for: 1. 2002 massacre of Muslims in Gujarat 2. Being friends with crony capitalists.

This is not an exaggeration. You can read about what he did in his state when he was the chief minister.

Re: What is Jio, and why are tech’s biggest players suddenly obsessed with it?

#47
post #40

I can’t understand why tech’s biggest players are obsessed with it. I mean, I know what they may be thinking and why they’re salivating. But I believe they’re just behaving as if they don’t want to be left behind and seen as losers, whereas the truth (IMO, and take this with a big pinch of salt) is that this looks like the seemingly limitless amount of money pumped in by Uber or SoftBank in the hopes of “capturing th…

I am no expert in any sense but the comparison to 'limitless amount of money pumped in by Uber or SoftBank in the hopes of “capturing the market and making boatloads of money”' here is incorrect. JIO already has a good amount of paying, repeating customers and they have the infrastructure setup and working already for 1B+ people (not subscribers). So yeah, the tech companies might lose it but not like Uber / Wework d…

Uber also had a huge number of paying customers! The problem is that they could not be paying enough to make ends meet.

If Jio is profitable, or would be profitable if it did not invest all the profits (like Amazon used to do), it's another story. But if the unit economy isn't working, then yes, it'b be an Uber, a unicorn which is too heavy for its own hooves.

Re: What is Jio, and why are tech’s biggest players suddenly obsessed with it?

#48

> Within a span of four years, Reliance pumped in over $33 billion from its other businesses to expand Jio’s market. > Jio was able to achieve these cheap rates by acquiring the only firm that won a pan-India 4G license, leveraging the superiority and cost-efficiency of 4G compared to older cellular standards, and because of the unparalleled size and resources of its parent company. [emphasis mine] > A sizable portio…

>>> by acquiring the only firm that won a pan-India 4G license. IIRC, that farm was simply a proxy with some back channel deals. Parent Company didn’t want their names in auction, that would have made the auction much more expensive. So they acquired the spectrum trough a front-face farm and later acquired it.

AFAIK the original purchase was much cheaper because the spectrum was assigned for IPTV, not telephony. The government later 'regularized' it, that being a euphemism for being bribed enough to change the allowed use of the spectrum.

Re: What is Jio, and why are tech’s biggest players suddenly obsessed with it?

#49
post #29

Jio’s parent company reliance is a textbook crony capitalism model. Since it’s inception they have been able to get unfair advantage by having or buying insiders from the government also they hire ex-bureaucrats for their network and no the moves in the government before it becomes public. On top of it Indian government was holding back retail market access from international competition till they get to ramp up (whi…

No different from lobbying efforts in the US. Case Point : TurboTax

If you really think Jio's reach into the government is comparable to TurboTax you may not be appreciating that TurboTax is not owned by the largest industrial group in America & the richest person in America. Try TurboTax being owned by an amalgamation of Amazon and General Electric that is owned by Jeff Bezos.
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