RIL launches JioGigaFiber, rolls out plans for hybrid online-offline retail model

Riding high on Jio tide, Reliance Industries (RIL) Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh  Ambani on Thursday said the company has doubled its subscriber base to 215 million in 22 months and is all set to launch much talked-about fibre-to-the-home broadband services JioGigaFiber soon.

Addressing the shareholders at the 41st Annual General Meeting of RIL, Ambani said: “As India starts on its high growth journey to double the size of its economy by 2025, I assure you that the size of Reliance will more than double in the same period.”

Describing this as the company’s “golden decade”, he also said that it’s consumer businesses is poised to contribute equally to overall earnings as the energy and petrochemical businesses.

The company currently has more than 25 million JioPhone users.

Announcing that the company’s fixed line broadband service, JioGigaFiber, Ambani said:

“We will now extend fiber connectivity to homes, merchants, small and medium enterprises and large enterprises simultaneously across 1,100 cities to offer the most advanced fiber-based broadband connectivity solutions.”

Starting this Independence Day, August 15 people can start registering for JioGigaFiber through both MyJio and Jio.com.

Isha Ambani and Akash Ambani unveiled the JioGigaFiber.

He said for homes JioGigaFiber means ultra high-definition entertainment on large screen TVs, multi-party video conferencing from living room, voice-activated virtual assistants, virtual reality gaming, digital shopping and immersive experiences.

The company also said it would launch JioPhone2 on August 15, which will be available along with the existing JioPhone. It will have added features like WhatsApp, YouTube and Facebook. It would have a horizontal screen.

“Today we are introducing another attractive offer to feature phone users. It is the JioPhone “Monsoon Hungama” offer. Starting July 21… they can exchange their existing feature phone for a brand new JioPhone for just Rs 501! We have thus reduced the effective entry cost of the JioPhone from Rs 1,500 to as low as Rs 501. Starting August 15, our JioPhone2 will be available at an introductory price of only Rs 2,999.”

According to Ambani, the platform will bring together the 35 crore customer base of Reliance Retail stores, 21.5 crore Jio connectivity users and a targeted 5 crore Jio “GIGA-HOMES”; and the “3 crore small merchants and shop-keepers all over India who provide the last-mile physical market connectivity”.

On the experiential side of the new platform, Ambani said: “Our new commerce platform will redefine retail in India by enabling all customers — rich or poor, whether at home or on mobile — to transition from simple shopping to personalised immersive shopping experience.”

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