Reliance Jio aims to cover 99% India's population by end of current fiscal; adds 83 mn subcribers in 2018

New Delhi: Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL’s telecom arm Reliance Jio on Thursday said it is looking at covering 99 percent of India’s population by the end of the current fiscal. “India’s digital services market is continuing its exponential growth trajectory with Jio expanding its coverage and further deepening in existing areas to achieve 99 percent population coverage during FY 2018-19,” Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), parent firm of Jio, said in its annual report today. The company reported to have 186.6 million subscribers as on 31 March, 2018, up by around 83 million compared to 2016-17, with average revenue per user of Rs 137 per month. “Our new-age consumer businesses achieved leadership positions nationally - their growth rates outpacing the best in the world. Jio, now the world’s largest and fastest growing mobile data network, stunned the world and made us proud by turning profitable in the very first year of operations,” RIL Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani said. He added that from a mere 2 percent in FY 2016-17, Jio and Retail accounted for 13.1 percent of RIL’s consolidated segment EBITDA in FY 2017-18. “This was achieved notwithstanding a sharp 33.6 percent spurt in consolidated EBITDA to Rs 74,184 crore,” Ambani said. [caption id=“attachment_4402725” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Reliance Jio. File pic: Reuters[/caption] The report said that in the very first year of commercial operations, digital services business recorded revenue of Rs 23,916 crore. Reliance’s gross debt was at Rs 2,18,763 crore during 2017-18 which includes standalone gross debt of Rs 58,392 crore of Reliance Jio, according to the report. “During FY 2017-18, Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (RJIL) successfully refinanced long-term syndicated loans aggregating $1.5 billion, resulting in substantial interest,” the report said. The report said that Reliance Jio has built India’s largest a next generation all-IP data network with latest 4G LTE technology which is ready to deploy 5G technology and beyond. RJIL’s total spectrum footprint at the end of 2017-18 stood at at 1,108 MHz (uplink + downlink) across three spectrum bands namely 800 MHz, 1800 MHz and 2300 MHz band across all the 22 circles with an average life of over 15 years. “All of this spectrum is liberalised and can be used for rolling out any technology,” the report said.   (Disclosure: Reliance Industries Ltd is the sole beneficiary of Independent Media Trust which controls Network18 Media & Investments Ltd)