Jio AirFiber could be $4 billion-$9 billion in annual revenue opportunity for Reliance: Analysts
Jio AirFiber – could create a whopping $4 billion to $9 billion annual revenue opportunity if it sees wide acceptance of around 50-to-100 million homes, say analysts.
They added that the current pricing of Jio AirFiber is not disruptive versus competition as rival Bharti Airtel’s comparable 100 Mbps 5G-FWA offering is at a 12% discount, albeit without digital channels and OTT apps. While Airtel’s FWA service is at a 33% premium to Jio AirFiber’s base plan of Rs 599 a month, it offers faster speeds of 100 Mbps compared to 30 Mbps on Jio’s.
“Jio has ambitious plans with Jio AirFiber, with a target of 200 million homes…if there is wide acceptance of 5G FWA with bundled home entertainment services, it could be a significant revenue opportunity, especially as (home) broadband average revenue per user (ARPU) at Rs 600, is 3-4x higher vs mobile,” brokerage CLSA said in a note.
A 5G-based FWA service uses airwaves instead of cables/fibre to provide fixed broadband access, using a next-gen mobile broadband technology.
It uses portable broadband devices, much like dongles but with better coverage and speeds.
At last month’s Reliance Industries (RIL) annual general meeting, chairman Mukesh Ambani had said Jio AirFiber has the potential to connect up to 150K homes every day, which is much higher than the 1.5K homes a day that Jio now does with Jio Fiber, amid last-mile connectivity challenges.
Experts added that Jio AirFiber’s launch pricing is also not disruptive compared with its own Jio Fiber home broadband rates as the latter’s base plan starts lower at Rs 399 a month. Jio already has 10 million home broadband users.
On Tuesday, Jio launched its Jio AirFiber services in eight cities (Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi,
