The Reliance Jio mobile phone operator will focus on subscriber numbers and not on rates

By Promit Mukherjee

MUMBAI (Reuters) – India Reliance Industries plans to stay focused on subscriber additions rather than seeking higher rates for its Jio telecommunications company, said a company executive.

Its strategy aims to prolong the pressure on rivals such as Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea, whose revenues and profits have fallen since the launch of Jio by Mukesh Ambani, India's richest.

"We tell you from the beginning, the customer is our priority today," said Anshuman Thakur, head of Jio strategy, at a press briefing Friday after the quarterly results.

Since its launch in September 2016, Jio has added 331.3 million subscribers by offering discounted data plans, free voice calls, free music, movies, and more. His arrival upset the Indian mobile phone market, forcing some small players to close their doors while the larger companies, Vodafone and Idea, reacted by merging in India.

Jio's competition sent average revenue per user (ARPU) tumbling. Jio's results for the quarter ending June 30 showed ARPU – a key measure for telecommunications companies – was 122 rupees (£ 1.42), down 9.3% from a year ago.

"We are not in this ARPU Thakur added that management's top priority is to get more subscribers to operate their network and use its services, creating more "long-term value".

Jio recently dominated Bharti Airtel to become the second largest telecom operator in India behind Vodafone Idea.

Analysts had predicted that Jio would increase its rates as soon as it reached a critical mbad of subscribers.

Thakur, however, suggested that Jio was not in the mood to give up, citing that he added 24.5 million subscribers in the quarter and that his subscribers are consuming on average 11.4 gigabytes of data per month.

"We are very pleased with these key performance indicators," he said.

Reliance also announced Friday that Jio sold its tower badets through an investment trust to Brookfield Asset Management, in Canada, for Rs. 250 billion.

(Report by Promit Mukherjee, edited by Euan Rocha and David Goodman)