As the Spanish telecom juggernaut prepares for a comprehensive strategy overhaul in November, Telefónica is thinking of laying off up to 7,000 employees. Although the business has not yet finalised the details, a Reuters official and internal sources both say that staff reductions are being considered.
On November 4, Executive Chair Marc Murtra is anticipated to present a new strategic direction. The majority of the proposed cuts are aimed at Spanish operations, including IT, broadband, and mobile services, and they may even make their way to Telefonica’s central offices for the first time.
After the next negotiations with unions, any employment actions would begin. The company hopes to reach an agreement by December 31 so that associated expenses can be included in the financials for the next year.
Layoffs Can Prove Profitable for Telefónica
In the midst of continuous digital changes, telecom companies’ attempts to optimise operations have been constantly monitored by investors. Given that Telefónica’s net debt is currently close to €27 billion, implementing layoffs could increase profit margins and free up money for much-needed network upgrades or debt reduction.
If the cuts appear credible, shares might respond favourably, but the true effect will rely on the final magnitude, voluntary adoption, and the rate at which the savings are converted into profits.
The Spanish corporation and its subsidiaries, Telefonica Moviles (the company’s mobile and broadband subsidiary in Spain) and Telefonica Soluciones (which provides outsourced IT services), are expected to account for the majority of the impacted employees, up to 5,000, according to the media reports. Employees at the corporate centre, who were previously exempt from redundancy plans, could also be impacted.
Troublesome Time for Europe’s Telecom Sector
Due to stagnant revenue and growing infrastructure expenses, major telecom companies in Europe are reevaluating everything from strategy to workforce. The sector as a whole is moving towards leaner, more tech-driven companies, as seen by Telefonica’s possible layoffs and extensive restructuring.
Such actions might set the tone for future employment cuts and investment strategies throughout the continent, as traditional revenue streams are under strain and competition is intensifying.
Quick Shots
•Telefónica plans to lay off up to 7,000 employees
in 2025 amid a major strategic overhaul.
•Executive Chair Marc Murtra to present new strategy
on Nov 4; layoffs may start after union negotiations.
•Majority of cuts expected in Spain, impacting IT,
broadband, mobile services, and possibly corporate offices.
•Layoffs aim to improve profit margins, reduce debt
(€27B net debt), and free funds for network upgrades.
•Potential positive market reaction depends on final
cut size, voluntary adoption, and savings-to-profit conversion.
•Subsidiaries Telefónica Moviles and Telefónica
Soluciones expected to bear up to 5,000 layoffs.
The government has been urged by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) to establish a formal regulatory framework for over-the-top (OTT) communication platforms like Signal, Telegram, and WhatsApp. COAI claimed in a statement that these platforms are the “weakest link” in the nation’s communication security, providing message and voice services akin to those of telcos but functioning outside of the regulatory framework.
COAI emphasised the significance of controlling all communication channels to improve national security, citing a recent event in Pahalgam where satellite phone signals assisted in the capture of three terrorists.
OTT Apps Like WhatsApp & Signal Bypassing Compliance Norms
Since OTT players currently evade compliance obligations like lawful interception, subscriber verification, anti-spam protocols, and domestic infrastructure investment rules that telcos must follow, the industry body, which represents private telcos Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea, said the regulatory gap presents difficulties for law enforcement.
Unified License System Suggested for OTT Communication Players
The DoT’s security directives under this act require authorised interception capabilities, local infrastructure, and the retention of domestic traffic—all crucial components for safeguarding user privacy for satellite communication services while guaranteeing national security. COAI suggested creating a specific OTT authorisation under the Unified License framework in order to close the gap.
Telecom Act 2023: Regulatory Gap Leaves Telcos at a Disadvantage
A specific OTT authorisation under the Unified License, according to COAI Director General SP Kochhar, will guarantee fairness, improve security, balance innovation with the nation’s security requirements, and establish uniformity across platforms. In order to alleviate the existing regulatory disparity, it was also suggested that OTT regulations be brought into compliance with the Indian Telecommunications Act, 2023.
OTT platforms that operate via the internet are not constrained by the infrastructure and interception constraints that apply to traditional telecom services. The Telecommunications Act 2023’s final text does not specifically place OTT platforms under licensing, despite telecom players’ calls for a “same service, same rules” approach.
OTT providers and tech groups contend that the IT Act 2000 already regulates them and that further regulation will impede privacy rights and innovation.
TRAI vs COAI: Spectrum Pricing Dispute Over Satcom Market
There is also a dispute between TRAI and COAI on the suggested satellite spectrum. Many satcom companies, including Starlink, Amazon’s Project Kuiper, and Airtel’s Eutelsat, are preparing to enter the Indian market.
However, Indian telcos are concerned about their entry into the global satcom market, particularly with regard to regulatory recommendations on satellite spectrum. Telcos criticised TRAI’s spectrum pricing strategy as “unfairly low” and predicated on “flawed assumptions” after the agency had suggested that satellite spectrum be priced at 4% of adjusted gross revenue (AGR).
Additionally, the COAI requested a second review. However, TRAI allegedly denied COAI’s request to reconsider its suggestions for satcom spectrum, claiming that the consultation process was exhaustive and open.
Telecommunication companies are entities that facilitate communication and connectivity without the need for physical interaction. Whether it’s making phone calls, accessing the internet, or exchanging written messages via emails and SMS, the telecom sector offers comprehensive solutions at our fingertips.
Through the use of cables, wires, waves, and wireless technology, telecommunication has enabled global communication. The companies operating in this sector encompass Internet Service Providers, wired and wireless telephone operators, cable companies, and satellite providers.
In the late 1990s, the telecom sector was predominantly controlled by major national operators. However, starting from the end of 2002, the sector began undergoing privatization, marking the advent of a new era in India.
Since then, numerous telecom companies have emerged in India, catering to the communication needs of the population. Yet, only a select few have managed to thrive amidst fierce competition and establish themselves in both our hearts and the market.
The Indian telecommunication market is largely dominated by a handful of providers, responsible for offering a wide range of telecommunication services, including internet provision and calling facilities.
In this blog, we will explore the top telecommunication companies that have not only survived fierce competition but have also excelled in delivering cutting-edge solutions and reliable connectivity. From offering high-speed internet to seamless mobile services, these companies have carved a niche for themselves in the Indian market.
So, let’s embark on this journey to discover the telecommunication leaders who are revolutionizing the way we connect, communicate, and experience the world of technology in India.
Top Telecom Companies in India by Users
Mobile Operator
Market Share
Jio
40.52%
Airtel
33.67%
Vodafone Idea
17.84%
BSNL
7.89%
MTNL
0.09%
Wireless Subscriber Market Share in India as of February 2025, by Service Provider
In India, Jio leads the telecom market with a 40.52% share, followed by Airtel with 33.67%. Vodafone Idea holds 17.8% of the market, while BSNL has 7.9%. MTNL, the smallest player, accounts for just 0.09% of the market share. The competition among these operators continues to shape the country’s telecom landscape, with Jio and Airtel dominating the industry. Despite the growth of private players, BSNL and MTNL still maintain a presence, albeit with significantly smaller shares.
Fixed-line telephone, Mobile telephony, Wireless broadband, Internet services, Mobile phones, OTT services
Top Telecommunication Companies in India – Jio
Reliance Jio is a subsidiary of Reliance Industries operating in the telecom industry, since 15th February 2007, founded by Mukesh Ambani with its headquarters at Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. Jio is the business name for Reliance Infocom Limited and is the best telecom company in India.
The company offers multiple services including fixed-line telephone and mobile phones, wireless broadband with internet services, and OTT services. Right now Jio provides 4G, 4G+, and 5G services. However, furthermore, it is planning to expand its services to 6G. Reliance Jio is India’s biggest telecom company.
According to the reports of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, Reliance Jio is the telecom company that has the highest market share in terms of being a wireless service provider. It has held40.52% of the market share among the rest of the other companies. It is the largest mobile network operator in India with over 46.72 crore (467.2 million) subscribers.
Fixed-line telephone, Mobile telephony, Broadband, Satellite television, Payments bank, Digital television, Internet television, IPTV
Top Telecommunication Companies in India – Airtel
Bharti Airtel Limited, operating under the business name of Airtel, is a public company, in the telecommunication sector. It was founded by Sunil Bharti Mittal on 7th July 1995. It is headquartered in Delhi and is one of the top 3 telecom companies in India.
Airtel is also known to offer different services such as Fixed-line Telephones, Mobile Phones, Broadband, Satellite Television, Payment Bank, Digital Television, Internet television, and IPTV. Its revenue as of 2021 is 101,258 Crore INR. It is the top mobile network in India.
Airtel is known for providing 2G, 3G, 4G LTE, and 4G+ services. According to TRAI reports, Airtel has a 33.67% market share in the wireless subscriber market and is the second top telecom company in India after Jio.
Mobile telephony, Wireless broadband, Internet services
Biggest Telecom Company in India – Vodafone Idea
Vodafone Idea Limited, one of the top 3 telecom companies in India is also known as VI is a joint venture of Idea and Vodafone as the name suggests. It was founded in the year 2018 when two major telecommunication companies decided to merge their businesses with their headquarters in Mumbai and Gandhinagar respectively.
The telecom company deals with products like mobile Telephony, wireless broadband, and internet service. However, the company has seen a great increment since 31st October 2021. Vodafone Idea is one of the top 3 telecom companies in India.
The company was recorded to achieve a total of 269.03 million subscribers giving it the rank of the third largest telecommunication company in India after Jio and Airtel. VI’s market share is 17.84% of the total market share of telecommunication companies in the wireless subscriber market in India.
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) is a telecommunication company owned by the Ministry of Communication, the Government of India. It is a statutory corporation founded in the year 2000, with its headquarters in New Delhi.
BSNL offers a wide range of services, including landline and mobile telephony, broadband internet, and enterprise solutions. With its extensive network infrastructure and reach across the country, BSNL, one of the oldest telecom operators in India has played a pivotal role in connecting millions of people, especially in rural and remote areas where connectivity is essential for development and communication.
Despite facing stiff competition from private players, BSNL continues to adapt and evolve to meet the changing demands of the telecommunication industry. The company’s dedication to customer satisfaction and its vast network coverage have helped it maintain a significant market presence in India. BSNL has the greatest share in terms of telecom PSUs at 7.89%.
Mobile telephony, Fixed-line telephony, Digital television, Wired and Wireless Broadband, IPTV
Top Telecommunication Companies in India – MTNL
Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited or MTNL previously known as Bombay Telephone Limited is a subsidiary of BSNL owned by the Ministry of Communication, the government of India. It is a prominent telecommunications company that operates in the metropolitan cities of Delhi and Mumbai in India. Established in 1986, MTNL is a state-owned enterprise and provides a wide range of telecommunication services to its customers.
MTNL works and provides services in the fields of mobile telephony, fixed-line telephony, digital television, wired and wireless broadband, and IPTV. It was the first telecom operator in India to launch 3G mobile services, providing high-speed data and improved voice quality to its subscribers. The company continues to invest in upgrading its network infrastructure and introducing new services to meet the growing demands of its customers. MTNL has a market share of 0.09% among the other top telecommunications companies in India.
Telecom Sector Market Size
India is the world’s second-largest telecom market. As of May 2024:
Telecom Sector Market Size
Wireless users: 1.17 billion
Jio: 474.61 million
Airtel: 387.76 million
Vodafone Idea: 218.15 million
BSNL: 86.32 million
Wired broadband users: 41.31 million
Data Usage
From June to Sept 2024, total data use grew by 40.76%.
Wireless data rose 4.01% from Sept to Dec 2023.
4G used the most (86.66%), followed by 5G (12.59%), 3G (0.65%), and 2G (0.09%).
Telecom revenue: INR 91,426 crore (US$10.46 billion) in Q2 FY25.
Future
India will gain 500 million new internet users in 5 years.
By 2025, 22 million skilled workers will be needed in 5G-related fields like IoT, AI, robotics, and cloud computing.
The Indian Telecom sector is way ahead in the present time as of a few years back. India is considered the second-largest telecommunication market in the world. It has its shares of different firms involved in it. Irrespective of the number of firms working in the telecom sector, the Indian telecom industry is highly dominated by few telecommunication providers.
The top telecommunication companies in India have transformed the way we communicate, connect, and experience technology. They have not only expanded access to communication services but have also driven digital inclusion and economic growth. As we move forward, these companies will continue to redefine connectivity, enabling individuals, businesses, and the nation as a whole to thrive in an increasingly interconnected world.
FAQs
What is meant by telecommunication?
The term telecommunication stands for the transfer of information through different mediums such as wire, radio, or any other electromagnetic system.
Which firms provide telecommunication systems in India?
Firms like MTNL, Jio Reliance, Vodafone Idea, etc. are known to provide telecommunication services in India.
Which is the largest telecom company in India?
Based on current data, Reliance Jio is the largest telecom company in India.
What is the count of the total subscriber base in India for the telecommunication industry?
The total subscriber base count for the telecommunication industry in India is around 1170.38 million, calculated in December 2022.
What is the driving factor of the growth of telecom sector in India?
The proliferation of smartphones and the increasing demand for high-speed internet access have been key driving factors behind the growth of the telecom sector in India. Additionally, the government’s initiatives to promote digital connectivity and the rapid expansion of mobile network coverage have further fueled the industry’s growth.
What are the employment opportunities in telecom sector?
The telecom industry offers a wide range of employment opportunities, including roles in network engineering, telecommunications infrastructure, customer support, sales and marketing, research and development, and project management.
Which telecom company is best in India?
Reliance Jio is the best telecom company in India.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verifiedinformation ondifferent startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by Jio.
When do you think a revolution came in the telecommunication industry? Well, the most common answer is after the launch of Mukesh Ambani’s Jio. This company made an incredible entry into the Indian mobile telecom sector with the most exclusive cost leadership strategy that revolutionized the whole market of telecommunication. But how do you think did that happen?
Was it the investments in the company or the business model or Mukesh Ambani’s strategic plans?
To know more about How Jio Started, information about Jio company, the Success Story of Reliance Jio, and how Jio changed India, you go through this StartupTalky article.
When Anil Ambani and Mukesh Ambani had a split in the year 2005, it was one of the biggest de-merger in the industry. The dream project of Mukesh Ambani that was Reliance Infocom, became a part of the Anil Ambani Group. Furthermore, Mukesh Ambani went on to acquire the company Infotel Broadband Services Limited, which was the only successful bidder across India for the 4G network.
This is when Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Limited started working on establishing a base for a high-speed optical fiber 4G network which is much more capable than 4G. The company was named Reliance Jio Infocom Ltd popularly known as Jio today. Jio was the first network to provide 4G LTE services and VoLTE services.
Jio launched these services on 5th September 2016 for all the users and also launched its smartphone series with the name LYF. Reliance Jio Infocom Ltd (RJIL) focused on high-speed data instead of voice and SMS. On its launch, the company announced data plans with 1GB 4G data per day in the market where mostly all popular telecom providers offered 1GB data per month.
This was a game-changer by RJIL in the price-sensitive market of India as the prices before that revolved around Rs 250-300 for 1 GB 4G data, which went down to Rs 5 per GB during the initial days. Along with these amazing plans, Jio also started offering free voice calling and free 100 SMS per day for all its Prime members.
JioPhone Next
The all-new ‘JioPhone Next’, is being jointly developed by Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance and tech giant, Google was scheduled for a Ganesh Chaturthi release, on September 10, 2021. However, Reliance Telecommunication’s revolutionary product hit a roadblock due to an acute global shortage of semiconductors and had been postponed till Diwali at least, as per the reports dated September 10, 2021. The company then remarked that it had already started testing the device among a limited set of users to identify further scopes of refinement and make them easily available foolproof in November, during the festive season of Diwali. With this, Reliance Jio had also bought some more time to figure out efficient ways to mitigate the global shortage of semiconductors. This Reliance JioPhone Next was finally launched on November 4, 2021. These phones now comes at Rs 6,499, and is powered with the Android-powered Pragati OS, and a Qualcomm Snapdragon QM215 processor. The JioPhone Next can also be bought by paying Rs 1,999 only by the users who lack the options of paying for the phone upfront. However, they also need to pay the company for the full price of the phone later on by monthly installments.
The JioPhone Next can be summed up as a good option if you are looking for an entry-level budget phone, and if you don’t have Rs 6000-7000 or more to buy new phones. However, these phones also have numerous drawbacks like:
JioPhone Next is sluggish being deficient of adequate RAM
You need to only use a Jio sim as the primary SIM to use it
The phone can also be turned of by the financer if it is not properly paid for
It comes in with an Android OS, but has its own JIO customisations
Mukesh is reportedly the richest man in India and his family is popularly known as the richest family in Asia, according to Forbes. Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani was the Chief Managing Director (CMD) of Reliance Industries Ltd, which is one of the biggest conglomerates in India.
Mukesh was born in Aden but he grew up in Mumbai. Being one of the most influential and powerful personalities of the country he has provided his business acumens to the whole world. Mukesh Ambani is the owner of the world’s largest refinery. He has achieved tons of notable accomplishments and is a part of many renowned institutes as well. Ambani was the Director and Chairman of Reliance JIO Infocomm Ltd. too before he stepped down with effect from June 27, 2022, and his son, Akash Ambani, who was a Non-Executive Director, has been appointed as the Chairman of the company, as per reports dated June 29, 2022. The Jio board has also revealed the appointments of Raminder Singh Gujral and K.V. Chowdary as additional directors of the company, who will serve as independent directors for the next 5 years, commencing from June 27, 2022. Furthermore, Pankaj Mohan Pawar has been appointed as the Managing Director of the Jio business also for 5 years.
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Some time back, Mukesh Ambani the founder of Jio was asked about how he thought of coming up with such an amazing idea to which he said that this idea was seeded by his daughter Isha Ambani. In 2011, Isha Ambani was a student at Yale in the US and was home for the holidays.
She told her dad how bad the internet connectivity was at their house because she couldn’t submit her coursework. At that time, Mukesh Ambani realized that how India is suffering from bad and poor connectivity of the internet.
The data was severely scarce and overpriced, which was unaffordable to a majority of Indians. Since then, Mukesh Ambani started working on Jio to make the data services abundant and affordable in every part of the country, which gave birth to Reliance Telecommunication’s Jio business line.
JIO stands for Joint Implementation Opportunities and the full name of the company is Reliance Jio Infocom Ltd.
Reliance Jio Logo
The logo of Reliance Jio has a hidden meaning. When we flip the logo and look at its mirror image it is read as ‘oil’ which represents the past and future of Reliance. The company Reliance appeared as a business giant in the 20th century because of its Oil business and in the 21st century probably the flipped version, Jio has successfully ushered in another revolution.
The slogan of Reliance Jio is ‘Digital Life’ while a popular tagline of Jio has been ‘Jio jee bharke’ which means live life to the fullest.
Jio – Business Model and How it Works?
Reliance Jio had really smart strategies and most of them belonged to the founder Mukesh Ambani. For its initial year, Jio gave unlimited data services and high-quality Volte calling services at surprisingly low charges. The complete change in the market made other telecom operators change their business models.
These offers created a lot of radical and unexpected changes in the consumer’s behavior as well. Also, it led to many mergers and acquisitions in Indian mobile network providers. Jio, in turn, made people use more and more services so that they spend more.
Jio eventually started charging 6 paise per minute on its calling services. The company has now launched numerous value packs consisting of both internet and calling benefits along with other on-demand subscriptions at competitive rates, which are even lower for Jio phone users.
Well, in the initial phase Reliance took a big risk to enter into the telecom industry but it has proved to be one of the best companies in the current market.
Jio has already proven to be a rising force being a revolutionary company and the torchbearer of the Indian 4G VoLTE services. The Mukesh Ambani-led company is currently the leading telecommunication service provider in India. The Jio company is now working to empower the Indian users with the 5G and 6G services as well. Jio is the 3rd largest mobile network operator in the world with over 179.93 million users.
Jio has added 1.6 mn+ wireless subscribers to its network in April 2022. In the broadband segment, Jio leads the path, which currently boasts of 52.15% of the total Indian userbase, followed by Bharti Airtel, which now enjoys 31.61% of the market share. Reliance Industries’ shares reportedly closed 1.5% higher at Rs 2,529 on the BSE on June 28, 2022.
Jio launched the fiber to the home service in 2019, which now offers home broadband, telephone, and television services. When the coronavirus made things scary for businesses and professionals, Mukesh Ambani made his company Reliance Jio net debt-free 9 months before the deadline. The conglomerate has raised Rs 53,124.0 crore by offering shares to its existing shareholders and another Rs 118,318.45 crore by selling stakes in the Jio platform through 12 deals.
Reliance Jio has become the country’s largest-ever right issue and series of stake sales deals in its arm Jio Platforms, delivering on a promise given to its shareholders in last year’s August.
“I have fulfilled my promise to the shareholders by making Reliance net debt-free much before our original schedule of 31st March 2021,” Mukesh Ambani said in a statement released early on Friday.
Reliance Industries is in its ‘Golden Decade’ and Mr. Mukesh Ambani has assured his shareholders that in this decade RIL will set even more ambitious growth goals and achieve them. Back in 2017, Mr. Ambani said that the energy-to-telecom conglomerate was on the verge of a golden decade where it would yield the returns of its largest-ever capacity expansion in its petrochemical business and its investment in Jio. With these investments, the company’s net debt was Rs 161,035 crore, as of March 31, 2020, and the funds raised in the last 8 weeks exceeded it. Along with the stake sale to BP in the petro-retail joint venture, the total fundraising is in excess of Rs 1.75 lakh crore.
In twelve weeks thirteen different companies have invested in Jio platform, from leading Global investors which included Facebook, Silver Lake(Twice), Vista Equity Partner, General Atlantic, KKR. & Co.Inc., Mubadala Investment Company, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, TPG Capital, L Catterton, Saudi Arabia PIF, and Qualcomm.
Companies Investing In Jio In A Nutshell
Name of the Company
Stakes
Total Investments
Facebook
9.99%
INR 43,574 cr
Vista Equity Partner
2.32%
INR 11, 367 cr
Silver Lake Partner
1.15%
INR 5,655.75 cr
General Atlantic
1.34%
INR 6,598.38 cr
KKR & Co. Inc.
2.32%
INR 11,367 cr
Mubadala Investment Company
1.85%
INR 9,093.60 cr
Silver Lake Partner
0.93%
INR 4,546.80 cr
Abu Dhabi Investment Authority
1.16%
INR 5,683.5 cr
TPG Capital
0.93%
INR 4.546.80 cr
L Catterton
0.39%
INR 1,894.50 cr
Saudi Arabia’s Wealth Fund PIF
2.32%
INR 11,367 cr
Qualcomm
0.15%
INR 730 cr
Jio Platforms has diluted 25.24% of its equity. That’s the maximum they have in view to dilute to financial investors, which includes Mark Zukerberg’s Facebook. Any new investors coming on board in the future will have to be “strategic investors, a tech giant, for instance,” said a source who was part of the deal-making process. The RIL-FB partnership could emerge as the core platform for India’s digital economy and as more consumers and small businesses shift online, it could unlock a digital market worth $2 trillion.
The secret behind Jio’s success is that it is customer-centric and has a webscale mentality. Reliance Jio made it look easy when it successfully swooped into the jam-packed and super competitive mobile market with free 4G voice and data service. So, in a nutshell, Reliance Jio, aims at harnessing the full potential of the internet to create a digital revolution through their technologies. Innovative services and long-term planning will radically bring the world at one’s fingertips much faster and also transform the way Indians think, work, live, and are entertained.
Reliance Jio announced plans for integrated fibre connectivity and digital solutions to transform over 50 Million small and medium businesses in India on March 9, 2021. A statement released by Reliance Jio said – “Under this plan, Indian MSMEs will get Jio connectivity at one-tenth (1/10th) of the existing price in the market. They will also be able to collaborate with Jio partners to get easy-to-use solutions”
Reliance Jio also announced to launch of its new product JioBook, as per the reports dated March 8, 2021. After years of speculation, it is believed that the product is in the Engineering Validation test stage. JioBook is a laptop, that is said to be affordable and would attract a lot of customers. As per the speculations, the price of the laptop would start from INR 10,000 onwards.
Reliance Jio emerged as the top bidder in India’s $11 billion airwaves auction, said the reports on March 2, 2021. Reliance Jio bought airwaves worth Rs 571.23 billion ($7.8 billion) of the total Rs 778.2 billion raised in the latest spectrum auction. Jio’s competitors – Bharti Airtel Ltd., spent $2.6 billion and Vodafone Plc’s India unit bought spectrum worth Rs 19.9 billion.
Some of the popular Jio Apps that the customers can now find are:
Jio Pages – A Jio launched web browser for Android mobiles
Jio Chat – JioChat is an instant messaging and video calling app for Jio users.
Jio Cinema – An online HD video library by Jio, designed to provide the users with movies, tv shows, and music videos online
Jio Cloud – A safe and secure cloud storage service from Jio
Jio Health – A health services app from Jio
JioNews – A news app or e-reader for news by Jio
JioMeet – A video-conferencing platform from Jio
JioMoney – A mobile wallet for the Jio customers
JioSaavn – Provides online and offline music streaming in English and Indian languages
JioSecurity – A mobile security and antivirus app
JioTV – A streaming service brought by Jio
JioCall (Jio4GVoice) – A videocalling feature for the fixed-line number customers
MyJio – A Jio account using which the Jio users can manage their Jio account and digital services
Jio also has a list of other products and services. Here are some important ones to know about:
There are many telecommunication brands that have thrived for long years in the telecommunication space of India. Popular brands like Airtel, Idea, Vodafone, etc. had achieved the customer’s trust for years and are still among the Reliance Jio competitors. However, with the disruptive entry of Jio, they had to hurry things up and make significant changes in their business models, strategies, and workings to match up with Jio’s radical approach.
Small network operators like Aircel, Tata Teleservices, and Telenor had to shut down their functions in India because of the revolution brought by Jio into the market. The profits of other Telecom operators have also drastically decreased since Jio’s inception. Idea also had to merge with Vodafone eventually to make the company Vodafone Idea or Vi.
Mukesh Ambani, recently in an interview, stated that Reliance Jio is now focusing on growing the teledensity in the rural and remote areas. The company is continuing to grow in demand for telecom services and provides digital services with greater services.
Reliance Jioplanned to build a data center in UP with approximately $950 million as an investment on February 23, 2021. This center will be powered by its own renewable energy plant.
The company may also expand from being a digital telecom service provider to a digital services player which also offers services related to agriculture, healthcare, and education. Jio also aims to be an influencer and initiator in bringing and developing 5G services in India. The future Reliance Jio projects also include the launching of the 5G and 6G services, and the launch of the JioPhone Next, which was done in November 2021.
FAQs
What is Reliance Jio Tagline/Slogan?
The slogan of Reliance Jio is ‘Digital Life’ while a popular tagline of Jio has been ‘Jio jee bharke’, which means live life to the fullest.
Who is Reliance Jio Founder?
Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani is the founder of Reliance Jio.
How much is Reliance Jio Revenue?
In the second quarter of FY2021, it reported a revenue of INR 17,481 Cr with a profit of INR 2,844 Cr. In Q1, the company reported INR 16,557 Cr in revenue. Reliance Jio’s average revenue per user (ARPU) has gone up to INR 140, during Q1 of FY2021.
Who are Reliance Jio’s top competitors?
Airtel, and Vi are the prominent competitors of Reliance Jio.
How much is Mukesh Ambani’s net worth?
Mukesh Ambani’s net worth is $90.7 bn, as of April 2022.
Does Reliance Jio have any subsidiaries?
Yes. Reliance Jio’s subsidiaries are LYF and Reliance Jio Infocomm Pte. Ltd.
How much is Reliance Jio’s customer base?
As of April 2022, Reliance Jio recorded 179.93 million users.
Wipro Limited is an Indian multinational corporation that is headquartered in Bengaluru, Karnataka. It is known for Wipro products and services list which includes IT services, BPO services, IT consulting, testing, research and development in the software and hardware areas of companies around the world.
Wipro Group is a global leader when it comes to cognitive computing, robotics, hyper-automation, cloud, analytics and emerging technologies. The Wipro group of companies list is recognized globally for its portfolio of services, sustainability and corporate citizenship. The chairman of the company is Azim Premji who is the second wealthiest person in India and the person credited for the success of Wipro.
The Wipro subsidiary companies are well one of the top IT service providing companies different types of Wipro products such as enterprise application services like ERP, SCM, CRM to services like E-procurement, E-Business solutions. The Wipro subsidiaries are divided into four different parts which are Wipro Limited, Wipro Consumer Care and Lighting, Wipro Infrastructure Engineering And Wipro GE Medical Systems Limited.
The Wipro group companies offer services and products of Wipro to various industries like Finance, Telecom, Media, Utilities, Energy and Entertainment. Not only that, but Wipro company is also one of the largest R&D services in the world. The company has over 180,000 employees from various countries across six continents. Wipro also offers Consulting services and helps companies in Business Process Outsourcing which help in HR, Procurement, Finance and Accounting.
The Wipro sub-companies also provide technology infrastructure services in terms of revenue, people and to over 200 customers in the US, Japan and Europe and 650 customers in India. The total revenue of Wipro as of 2021 is over $10 billion while its net income for 2021 is $1.4 billion. Wipro Industries is known to be the largest public-traded company in India and the seventh-largest IT Services Company in the world.
Wipro originally known as the Western India Palm Refined Oil Limited (abbreviated to Wipro) started in December 1945 by its founder Mohamed Premji. The initial products of Wipro were different types of oil, as it started out as a manufacturer of vegetable and other refined oil known as Kisan, sunflower and camel in Maharashtra.
In 1966, Azim Premji took over as the company’s chairman after his father’s death. The name of the company was changed from Western Indian products limited to Wipro products in 1977. That name was further replaced by Wipro limited in 1982, this was because in the same ear the company also entered the IT industry.
Azim Premji is responsible for transforming Wipro into a Wipro Fluid company and also introducing Wipro Fluid Power that manufactures hydraulic and pneumatic cylinders. In 1979 Wipro became India’s first computer manufacturer as the company developed and sold its computers in 1981. With its success, the company forayed into the field of software development and is credited for introducing software packages for hardware customers.
Facts on Wipro
In the 1990s, the company got started its range of baby toiletries like Wipro baby soft and also the Santoor talcum powder which became a staple in Indian homes which was among the first Wipro subsidiaries. Wipro Infotech and Wipro system got merged with Wipro in 1995 and they became Wipro subsidiary companies. The company expanded internationally in the 1990s and even got listed on New York Stock Exchange in 2000. It was in 2002 that Wipro became the first Indian software tech and services company to get the ISO 14001 certified.
The Wipro subsidiaries list kept growing as it ventured into manufacturing fluorescent lamps making the Wipro Consumer Care and Light Group enter the market. Wipro joined the billion-dollar club in 2004 and also partnered with Intel on a project called i-Shiksha. It wasn’t until 2012 that the company decided todemerge its consumer care, lighting, furniture, infrastructure engineering into a separate company known as the Wipro Enterprise Limited. The company further made many clever and strategic acquisitions and signed contracts with many international firms.
Wipro has so far made over 19 acquisitions and 8 investments. All the Wipro acquisitions so far are estimated to beover $2.49 billion. The company has invested in many industries like SaaS, Search AF test, standard, manufacturing tech. Some of the top companies in the Wipro acquisitions list are Infocrossing acquired for $600 million in August 2007. One of the other top Wipro acquisitions was Appirio acquired for $500 million in October 2016 and HealthPlan Services acquired for $460 million in February 2016.
Some of the other recent Wipro acquired companies are Rational Interactions a settle based digital customer experiences consultancy which the company acquired in February 2020. Wipro recent acquisition was in October 2020, when Wipro acquired Encore Theme Technologies, that same month it also acquired Eximius Design for $80 million. The last Wipro acquisition was in March 2021 was Capco a British consultancy firm.
Topcoder became one of the Wipro subsidiaries when the company was acquired by Wipro in 2016 along with Appirio which were a part of their $500 million deal. Topcoder is a crowdsourcing company that has a huge global community of data scientists, developers, programmers and designers. How Topcoder works is that it pays the members of its community for offering its services to corporate, mid-size or even small business clients.
The company is also known for its yearly Topcoder Open tournament and other small regional events. This subsidiary of Wiprowas founded by Jack Hughes in the year of 2001, the company first started with Competitive programming challenges which helped generate interest among the student community. The company became one of the Wipro sister companies when it started offering various software development services and similar products of Wipro to 3rd party clients.
In order to generate more income, the company started new competition tracks that gave more work to its employees. After being acquired by Wipro the company has continued to offer its clients many hybrid crowd platforms and help create certified and private crowdsourcing communities. Wipro then integrated its employee’s only crowdsourcing platform TopGear with Topcoder.
The various services offered by the Topcoder design community are Information Architecture which helps the clients with wireframing and generating ideas. It also helps with the UI/U/CX design which involves the creation of apps and web designs and coming up with design concepts, ideas and presentation design all of which are said to be top Wipro company products. The software development challenges that topcoder offers are bug bash, code, first to finish, etc.
Appirio
Wipro Subsidiary- Appirio logo
Appirio is one of the best Wipro acquisitions, as it was acquired in 2016 as a part of their $500 million deal along with Topcoder. The company was founded by Chris Barbin, Narinder Singh, Glenn Weinstein and Mike O Brien. Appirio is currently one of the topWipro sub-companies as offers information technology consulting services and has its headquarters based in Indianapolis in the USA. It company is known for its tech and professional services that its offers only to the clients that want to adopt public cloud applications.
They also offer SaaS services like Salesforce and Google apps which are the top products of Wipro. The main competitors of Appirio’s are Accenture and Deloitte. The company was founded by Salesforce and angel investors ($1.1 million), Sequoia Capital ($5.6 million), Sequoia Capital and GGV capital ($10 million) and General Atlantic ($60 million).
The company is a leader among Wipro group of companies and was awarded many titles such as On-Demand Company Of The Year by AlwaysOn, Best Place To Work In Bay Area by San Francisco Business Times in 2010. This is one of the few Wipro listed companies that have many other satellite offices in cities like Tokyo, London, Dublin, Sydney, Espoo, Stockholm, Porto, Pune, Bangalore, Noida, Hyderabad and Jaipur. The company is known to utilize public cloud solutions as it is a serverless company.
Opus Capital Markets Consultants
Wipro Subsidiary- Opus Capital logo
Opus is one of the top companies in the financial services industry which is why it became one of the top Wipro subsidiary companies. The headquarters are based in Lincolnshire in Illinois, the US and have over 500 employees. The company was founded in 2005 that became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Wipro in 2013. Opus offers various services like Residential mortgage, commercial mortgage, Compliances services, servicing reviews and advisory services which extends the Wipro company products list.
The company is among the few Wipro subsidiaries that specialize in risk management providers for mortgage and consumer lenders, services and investors. The company is focused on delivering a wide range of services like due diligence, quality control, servicing oversight and operational assessment.
Yardley of London is a British personal care brand that was acquired by Wipro in 2009 and is one of the unique Wipro subsidiaries. The company is known to be one of the oldest and specializes in cosmetics, fragrances and toiletry products. Yardley is also one of the biggest manufacturers of soap and perfumes, which increases the Wipro FMCG products. Yardley is known to have received two Royal Warrants.
The company was originally established by the cleaver family in 1770. The name of the company was changed to Yardley and Statham in 1823 after William Statham brought the firm. Yardley has made many soaps that are to this date popular. Because of the growing popularity of Yardley soaps and cosmetics in the 20th century, the company opened a shop in London in 1910.
In 1991, the company also introduced men’s grooming products. In 2005, the Jatanias which is Britain richest Indian family brought Yardley for 60 million euros 2005. It wasn’t until 2009 that Wipro consumer care brought Yardley for $45 million the brand ambassador for Yardley in India is Bollywood actress Katrina Kaif. Yardley is among the most popular Wipro company products.
Wipro GE Medical Systems
Wipro Subsidiary- GE Healthcare logo
Wipro GE Medical Systems is a joint venture between GE Healthcare South Asia and Wipro in 1990 and is currently one of the top Wipro companies in India. The company is known for its research and development of healthcare products. The company increases the Wipro products list in India, as it manufactures a vast variety of gadgets and equipment for diagnostics, healthcare ITand services to help healthcare professionals that are used for combat cancer, heart disease and other ailments.
Wipro GE Medical Systems is among the only company in Wipro companies list that strictly follows six sigma quality standards in all products. The company is an expert in medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnosis, patent monitoring systems, drug discovery, and biopharmaceutical manufacturing tech, performance improvement and solution services, which are among the well known Wipro company products list. They offer all these services at a lower cost.
The company is among the most respected Wipro group companies as it is present in Asia Pacific, China, Africa, Europe, India, Latin America, America and Canada. The specializes in making products for Vascular, Orthopedics, Spine, Urology, Cardiac, General Surgery, Pain Management, Outpatient Interventional.
Wipro Consumer Care and Lighting
Products of Wipro Consumer Care and Lighting
Wipro Consumer Care and lightning are one of the biggest and fastest FMCG companies in countries like India, Asia and Africa. It is one of the most successful companies owned by Wipro as its annual sales revenue is now up to Rs. 77.4 Crore in the year 2019 to 2020. The company is currently present in 20 different countries like India, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Wipro consumer care and lightning have over 16 manufacturing units in India, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, China and South Africa.
The company also has Research and Innovation Centers in India, Malaysia, China, the Philippines and South Africa. They are based in 22 countries, marketed in 60 plus countries with over 10,000 plus employees. The Wipro company products list such as like personal wash products, skincare products, male grooming products, toiletries, household products, furniture, commercial lighting, etc is well known in the country.
Wipro Consumer Care and lightning are among the top Wipro group of companies as has made several acquisitions like Unza, Yardley, LD Waxsons in order to get a global footprint. The key brands of Wipro consumer care and lighting are Santoor, Chandrika, Maxkleen, Giffy, Enchanteur, Safi, Aiken, Romano, Carrie, Garnet, Splash which come from different parts of the world.
This company is one of the Wipro companies in India and is known for developing, marketing and manufacturing hydraulic cylinders that are used for cargo handling, mining, freight and waste processing. The company also makes various products such as filters, pumps, valves, rear hinges and different components of hydraulic cylinders.
It is known to deliver over a million cylinders to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs)across the world. The company specializes in top Wipro products and services such as hydraulic cylinders for Construct and Earthmoving, Material and Cargo handling, Forestry, Farm and agriculture and mining. The company’s business has stepped up and launched specific solutions to fight Covid 19.
Conclusion
Wipro is an Indian conglomerate that has a global footprint for its services and products like IT services, BPO services, IT consulting, testing, research and development services. One of the main reasons for the company’s success is the strategic and clever subsidiaries it has acquired. Wipro group companies were and will continue to be a leader in the consumer market space and will increase the Wipro clients list. Because of the Wipro subsidiaries and Wipro acquisitions, the company has an extensive Wipro products list in India.
Reliance Jio, we all have been hearing a lot about this company for the past few years. Reliance Jio is a well-structured company whose business model is considered ‘the sweetest data bait.’
Jio has proven itself the icon of international tech and private capital investors. According to estimated data, Jio has raised Rs. 67,194.75 crore from the forthcoming technology investors including Silver Lake, General Atlantic, Facebook, and Vista Equity.
With the vibrant interest of the foreign investors in the Indian market have signed several deals for Reliance Jio. When it comes to the business model of Jio, the company has opted for very cleverish strategies which have resulted in remarkable profits for the company.
Reliance Jio holds a very strong position in the market with an immense customer base. Through this article, we will be discussing the business model of Reliance Jio briefly along with its tremendous marketing strategies. Let’s begin!
Jio is officially termed as Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited which functions as the Indian telecommunications company. Jio was founded by Mukesh Ambani in 2007 as the subsidiary of Reliance Industries.
Reliance Jio, which functions as a subsidiary of Jio platforms and telecommunications services providers has its well-established headquarter in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. Alongside the company operates all 22 telecom circles through the National LTE network. Through this, Jio provides the voice service on its 4G network, that too only from the LTE network.
Today, Jio is known as the largest mobile network operator across India and the third-largest in the world. The company has over 42.62 crore subscribers. Recently in 2019, Jio launched its service of fiber to the home, where it offers television, telephone, and home broadband services. As of 2020, Reliance Jio raised its funds by selling around 33% equity stake in Jio Partner, worth Rs. 1.65 lakh crore that is, US$23 billion.
Jio Business Model and the success story
Key Product and Services of Reliance Jio
Reliance Jio Services
Reliance Jio offers tons of amazing services through its fiber-to-the-home services. Its key services include telephone services, television, and home broadband services.
While its key products are Mobile Phones, top-notch internet speed and services, fixed-line telephone, OTT services, and Wireless broadband.
Target Audience of Reliance Jio
Reliance Jio majorly concentrates on the audience who are smartphone users. It provides the service of high-speed internet and great android mobile services. Jio targets the urban and two-tier middle and upper-class people. Jio works towards transforming India into a digital nation.
Jio, being the highest in the market strategizes its business model in a very significant and unique way. It has opted for the formula of ‘Unique Selling Point.’ This basically means Jio offering such unique and advantageous services to their customers that can not be resisted. This can be elaborate as when Jio launched the unlimited offer with a 4G server, people of India weren’t encountered 4G at all. And with such a unique offer, how can someone turn it down? And that’s what benefits the company of Reliance Jio.
Jio offers a broad range of customer-based features and services like high-speed Internet, free voice calls, unlimited texting, and many other. All these are developed to charge money from the customers. Its tariff plans are exclusively built to catch consumers’ eyes.
Jio has offered some very exclusive services to its customers with a fully served 4G network. Jio was the first to bring on the popularity and use of 4G network while other telecom companies were still working with 3G networks. And with this significant approach, Jio builds the biggest loyal customers base. People wanted more things in less price, Jio took the opportunity and provided them that. This unique strategy is what brought Jio where it is now!
What is unique about the business model of Reliance Jio?
Jio has opted for the most powerful and promising business strategies, which has surely brought great benefits and profit to it. Its business model is very simple, yet unique. The most unique thing about Jio is it offers free voice calls to its customers. According to statistics, only 10-15% of the Jio 4G network is used for calling while the other 85-90% is used for data. And when you have this amount of popularity and usage, paying a little price is always worth it. That’s what Jio does!
In this way, it attracts more and more customers to its services and creates a significant marketing buzz with free offerings. In all manner, it’s beneficial for the company.
How does Reliance Jio make money?
Reliance Jio generates its money from two major options- Charging extra per unit and selling more units. And as compared to other telecom companies, Jio sells way more of its units to generate more money.
For those who refer to Jio as a cheap telecom service provider, they are talking about its per-unit cost. But apart from this, the company charges its customers INR 154 for ARPU. And this amount is higher than any other telecom operator company.
So, the Jio customers are actually paying more for the cheap products. Jio does not provide the facility of paying just INR 10 per month as compared to other telecom companies. Jio majorly focuses on generating more money through all its plans.
With its incredible marketing strategy of generating money through Jio tariff plans that come in 4G network brings great profit for the company. Jio follows different pricing options and makes enormous customer deals.
They offer various applications, devices, and fiber services to multiply their revenue. This helps Jio to win numerous business verticals. And with such marketing strategies and development, Jio’s market value and position are unbeatable.
FAQs
What is the revenue of Reliance?
Reliance has a revenue of 7.27 lakh crores INR (US$100 billion, 2021).
Since its entry into India in 2007, Vodafone has established itself as a trusted mobile service provider in the country. After the launch of Reliance Jio, the company is facing tough competition in India, and some are even speculating the shut down of the company in India. Besides India, Vodafone has its operations in over 30 countries worldwide, and despite its ups and downs, Vodafone has managed to hold a significant share of the telecommunications market in many countries across the world. Vodafone is yet another example of a business that started small and went on to make a mark worldwide. Here is how Vodafone started and rose to become a leading player in the global telecommunication sector.
Racal Strategic Radio Ltd, a component of Racal Electronics, Britain’s biggest manufacturer of military radio equipment, launched a joint enterprise with American telecommunications company Millicom in 1981, which evolved into the modern Vodafone.
Today Vodafone provides a wide range of products and services for consumers, businesses, and Governments. Besides mobile services, Vodafone offers fixed broadband and television services, cloud and hosting, internet protocol-virtual private network services, roaming, and unified communications services.
Vodafone’s M-Pesa is a mobile financial and mobile payment service that allows customers to access their bank accounts to receive or send money, purchase stuff, make bill-payments, save funds, and get simple loans; and Vodafone One Net is a converged fixed and mobile communications service for big multinational companies as well as small and medium enterprises.
Vodafone also provides machine-to-machine services, as well as tablets, smartphones, and telematics commodities/services. It has roughly 16,000 retail locations, distributors, and third-party merchants selling its products.
Vodafone – Latest News
Vodafone’s first-quarter revenue for FY2021-22 increased by 1.4 percent in Germany which is its biggest market. In the UK, as international travel reopened, the telecoms behemoth benefited from visitors to the UK utilizing its network. A marginal increase in Vodafone’s revenue also came as it levied roaming fees as a result of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU. Overall, the Vodafone group made revenue worth $51.169B in FY 2020-21 which is 2.32% more than in FY 2019-2020 revenue.
Since the pandemic, Vodafone has experienced a resurgence in mobile phone sales, with greater customer loyalty across Europe, according to the company.
Vodafone – Industry
Companies in the telecommunications sector make communication possible on a worldwide scale, whether it’s through the internet or phone, over waves or wires, or digitally. These businesses built the infrastructure that allows data to be transferred anywhere in the globe in the form of text, speech, audio, or video. Telephone (both landline and wireless) operators, satellite companies, cable companies, and Internet service providers are the main corporations in the industry.
Telecommunications has grown in importance as a fundamental business, which speaks well for its prospects for the future and expansion. Continuous advancements in high-speed mobile networks and Network connectivity across devices continue to fuel industry invention and rivalry. Most of the industry’s attention is focused on delivering quicker data solutions, particularly in the field of high-resolution video. The driving causes are essentially faster and crisper services, improved connection, and multi-app utilization.
Vodafone is an acronym for VOice DAta FONE (a dramatic spelling of “phone”), which was selected by the firm to “represent the availability of telecommunication services through mobiles.”
Saatchi & Saatchi, a well-known worldwide advertising business, created the Vodafone logo in 1997. Conversation and voice communication is represented by the apostrophe in the logo. It brilliantly delivers a classic telecom brand that conveys its intended message in an aesthetically attractive manner.
Vodafone’s tagline says, “Together We Can.”
Vodafone – CEO and Founders
Vodafone was founded by Ernest Harrison and Gerry Whent in 1985.
Ernest Harrison
Sir Ernest Thomas Harrison OBE (11 May 1926 – 16 February 2009) was a British entrepreneur who was best known for being the first chairman of Racal’s spin-off mobile phone section, Vodafone.
Gerry Whent
Sir Gerald Arthur “Gerry” Whent CBE was the founder and first CEO of Vodafone. He was born on March 1, 1927, in Ferozepore, India, and died on May 16, 2002, in Chilton Foliat, Wiltshire.
Nick Read
Nicholas Jonathan Read aka Nick Read is the current CEO of Vodafone group. Born in 1964, Nick is a Certified Management Accountant. Prior to joining the Vodafone group, Nick worked for United Business Media Plc and Federal Express Worldwide. At Federal Express Worldwide, Nick worked as the Chief Finacial Officer for Europe, the Middle East, and the Africa region.
Nick joined Vodafone UK as the finance director in the year 2001 and became the CEO of the Vodafone group in 2018.
Ravinder Takkar
In India, Ravinder Takkar is the MD & CEO of Vodafone-Idea. He was the Ex- CEO of Vodafone Romania.
Vodafone – Startup Story
Based in Newbury in the United Kingdom, Vodafone has been offering its services since 1985. Vodafone’s story dates back to 1981. British Electronics company Racal Electronics and American company Millicom Inc joined hands to bid jointly for UK’s second cellular radio license. The joint venture between the two companies was named Racal-Millicom Ltd. In December 1982, Racal-Millicom Ltd. was successful in earning the second Mobile phone network license of the UK.
The Network was named Vodafone as the network lets its users transfer voice and data over the mobile phones. Racal-Vodafone (Holdings) Ltd became the holding company of Vodafone replacing Racal-Millicom Ltd. Racal held the majority shares in Racal-Vodafone (Holdings) Ltd. Meanwhile, Racal’s radio division earlier called Racal Strategic Radio was renamed Racal Telecommunication group limited.
In December 1986, Racal Electronics bought the entire shares of Vodafone from the minority shareholders, and thus Racal became the sole owner of the Vodafone brand.
In September 1988, Racal Telecommunication group limited was renamed Racal Telecom. In October 1988, when Racal Telecom went public, it came out that Racal Telecom was valued much more than its parent company Racal Electronics. This led to the de-merger of Racal Telecom from Racal Electronics, and Racal Telecom was renamed again as the Vodafone Group. Gerry Whent became the first CEO of Vodafone Group.
Vodafone – Mission and Vision
Vodafone’s mission statement says, “To connect for a better future and our expertise and scale gives us a unique opportunity to drive positive change for society.”
Vodafone’s vision is, “To be the communications leader in an increasingly connected world and to enrich our customer’s lives through the unique power of mobile communication.”
Vodafone – India
Vodafone India (previously Vodafone Essar Ltd, Huchison Essar Ltd) is the Indian subsidiary of the UK-based Vodafone Group plc and a telecommunications service provider in India, having its operating headquarters in Mumbai. Vodafone India has a market share of 21% as of March 2018, and after merging with Idea, the Vodafone Idea network now has around 375 million members, making it India’s third-biggest cellular mobile provider.
The advent of Jio in the Indian telecom business in 2016 prompted a flurry of mergers and corporate restructuring. In March 2017, it was reported that Idea Cellular and Vodafone India will be consolidated. In July 2018, the Department of Telecommunications approved the merger. The Vodafone-Idea merger received final approval from the National Company Law Tribunal on August 30, 2018. On August 31, 2018, the merger was finalized, and the newly formed company was named Vodafone Idea Limited.
As per September 2021 data, Vodafone Idea Limited is the third-largest mobile communication network in India on the basis of the number of subscribers. The Vodafone Group owns 45.2 percent of the merged firm, the Aditya Birla Group owns 26 percent, and the remaining shares are held by the general public.
Vodafone is well known as a mobile service provider, but there are many more categories that Vodafone has entered into. Vodafone offers broadband and wifi services. Another popular service is Vodafone TV. Vodafone TV has been designed to offer an all-round entertainment option to the viewers. On Vodafone TV, viewers can access live TV, Video on Demand and can also access platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. Vodafone TV comes with attractive features like Ultra HD picture quality, intelligent voice search and smart replay of games, etc.
Vodafone released Vodafone 360, a new internet provider for mobile, PC, and Mac, in October 2009. After low hardware sales, this was canceled in December 2011. This followed the resignation of the Director of Internet Services in September 2010, who tweeted, “5 days until I leave Vodafone, freedom beckons.” Vodafone launched, Vodafone 150, which is the world’s cheapest mobile phone, in February 2010. Vodafone intended to sell ‘Vodafone 150’ for less than $15 (£10) in underdeveloped countries. It began in India, Turkey, and eight African countries, including Lesotho, Kenya, and Ghana.
Some other services offered by Vodafone are –
Payment through mobile phone – Safaricom, Kenya’s biggest mobile communication operator and a Vodafone joint venture, released Vodafone-developed digital payments software in March 2007. M-PESA, Kenya’s mobile money transfer service, had 1.6 million users by February 2008. By 2011, there were fourteen million M-Pesa accounts, with 40% of the country’s savings saved in them. Vodafone launched a global collaboration with Visa in February 2012.
Health Services – Vodafone launched a newly developing market sector in November 2009 (the application of mobile communications and network technologies to healthcare). Several of its early accomplishments is the Novartis-led “SMS for Life” project in Tanzania, for which Vodafone designed and developed a message-based system that allows all of Tanzania’s 4,600 public healthcare facilities to report their levels of anti-malarial medications so that accurate inventory data can be seen centrally in legitimately, allowing for quick and efficient re-supply of stock.
Vodafone Foundation – With the tagline “Connecting for Good,” the Vodafone Foundation is a well-known charity that supports and initiates programs that employ mobile technology as a means to assist the needy. They frequently collaborate with other philanthropic organizations.
Vodafone – Business Model and Revenue Model
Various economic variables have an influence on the industry’s enterprises, including high infrastructure costs, price wars in various market forces, and enmeshed mobile telephony sector, and government restrictions. Government laws, such as the recent Vodafone-Hutch transaction, which the Indian government sanctioned for tax evasion. Vodafone uses a mix of segmentation tactics to divide its mobile network services, enterprise services, and internet services. It makes use of geographic, demographic, and psychographic segmentation.
Coming to Vodafone’s revenue model, a huge chunk of Vodafone’s revenue comes from selling mobile data, voice, financial services, and messaging services to individual and enterprise customers. Vodafone also makes money by offering various other services like cloud and hosting, cyber security solutions, remote working solutions, IoT related services and more to the enterprise customers. As per 2019- 20 reports, the company is aiming to diversify its revenue streams further in segments like financial services, IoT, digital services and enterprise.
As per some reports, Vodafone’s mobile networks, which allow consumers to call, text, and download files, account for about 70% of its revenues and even more of its earnings. Fixed-line services, which include internet, TV, and voice, make for the majority of the remaining revenue.
Vodafone – Investments
Vodafone has made 25 investments in total. Below are some of the recent investments made by Vodafone.
Date
Organization Name
Round
Amount
Apr 7, 2021
AST SpaceMobile
Post-IPO-Equity
$230M
Jan 20, 2021
FifthIngenium
Convertible Note
€470K
Mar 3, 2020
AST SpaceMobile
Series B
$110M
Aug 1, 2016
DAZL
Seed Round
$10.5K
Jun 30, 2016
Fight The Stroke
Seed Round
–
Jul 27, 2015
Cognia
Venture Round
–
Jun 22, 2015
LINKX
Seed Round
€30K
Jun 22, 2015
Mentelity
Grant
€30K
Jun 22, 2015
Jobtease
Seed Round
€30K
Jun 22, 2015
Puffer
Seed Round
€30K
Vodafone – Acquisitions
Vodafone has acquired 32 organizations. Some recent acquisitions made by Vodafone are –
Acquiree Name
About Acquiree
Date
Amount
GrandCentrix
GrandCentrix develops and provides a platform for suppliers of interactive mobile value-added services
Nov 18, 2019
–
Liberty Global
Liberty Global is an international cable company providing television, broadband internet, and telephony services.
Jul 31, 2019
$21.3B
Hellas Online
Hellas Online is one of the leading Greek fixed-line telephony services providers based in Athens
Aug 22, 2014
€72.7M
Cobra Automotive Technologies
Cobra Automotive Technologies design, development, manufacture and marketing of electronic systems.
Aug 1, 2014
–
The Cobra Group
The Cobra Group is an Electronics company.
Jun 16, 2014
€145M
ONO
Communications and Entertainment
Mar 17, 2014
€7.2M
Kabel Deutschland
Kabel Deutschland is the largest cable television operator in Germany.
Jun 24, 2013
$10.4B
Complete Telecom
Complete Telecom provides network infrastructure, converged networks, and metro and WAN bandwidth solutions.
Oct 1, 2012
–
Cable & Wireless Worldwide
Cable & Wireless Worldwide is a global telecommunications company.
Apr 23, 2012
–
Bluefish Communications
Consulting and Professional Services
Dec 1, 2011
–
Vodafone – Growth
Year
Revenue
Percentage Increase/Decrease From previous Year
2021
$51.169B
+2.32%
2020
$50.011B
-1.1%
2019
$50.565B
-18.16%
Vodafone – Competitors
Vodafone’s top global competitors are : AT&T, BT, Orange, Telefonica, Deutsche Telekom, Telstra, Tata Communications, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation, Liberty Global and Telefonica Colombia.
Vodafone’s business will almost certainly continue to be hampered by tough regulatory frameworks and adverse demographic trends in its major European countries, particularly in Spain and Italy, which account for over 25% of revenues and have some of the weaker fundamentals.
Meanwhile, Vodafone’s capital allocation history does not bode well for the company’s M&A (Merger & Acquisition)plan. Since 2009, Vodafone has incurred more than $50 billion in impairment charges, which reflect the fact that an acquired asset is currently worth less than what Vodafone paid for it.
Vodafone is one of the major telecommunications businesses in the world, having a strong presence in its main European countries. However, due to its increased fragmentation and fewer business-friendly authorities, this is a challenging region to compete in when compared to America.
In light of Vodafone’s need to continue deleveraging and invest substantially in 5G, cautious income investors may choose to avoid the stock in favor of more stable telecom companies like Verizon (VZ), which have more obvious routes to profitable long-term development.
In India, Vodafone is burdened by huge dues. In total Vodafone Idea has total debt of ₹1.92 trillion, which includes AGR dues, Spectrum-related dues, and bank loans. Stiff competition from reliance JIO is another major challenge Vodafone (Currently Vodafone Idea) is facing in India.
Vodafone – Future Plans
In the March quarter, Vodafone Idea recorded a net loss of Rs 7,022 crore and net debt of Rs 1.7 lakh crore.
“Financial performance has impacted its ability to generate the cash flow that it needs to settle/refinance its liabilities and guarantees as they fall due,” the company said, “which, combined with its financial condition, is resulting in material uncertainty that casts significant doubt on the Company’s ability to make the payments mentioned therein and continue as a going concern.”
Vodafone Idea stated in a statement that it is undertaking 5G testing in the cities of Pune and Gandhinagar, utilizing spectrum authorized by the government.
With its equipment partners in Gandhinagar and Pune, the telecom claimed to have reached peak download rates of 1.5 Gbps utilizing the 3.5 GHz spectrum.
Jagbir Singh, CTO at Vodafone Idea, said, “We are pleased with the speed and latency results in the initial stages of the 5G trials on the government allocated 5G spectrum bands. Having established a robust 4G network pan-India, delivering fastest 4G speeds and a 5G-ready network, we are now testing the next generation 5G technology to be able to bring a truly digital experience for enterprises and consumers in India, in the future.”
However, despite all its efforts, ‘Vodafone Idea’ is not in a good position in India. As expressed by Vodafone Group CEO Nick Read, the company has no plans to infuse fresh funds into the ‘Vodafone-Idea’ Venture.
In its fiscal Q4 and full 2021 earnings statement, Vodafone Group stated that it will focus on growing as “a new generation connectivity and digital services provider” for Europe and Africa.
The Covid 19 pandemic has proved yet again that connectivity and digital services are crucial to society and Vodafone Group is ready to grab the opportunities that the Covid situation has created in the field of connectivity and digitization.
As per Vodafone CEO Read, the company is targeting revenue growth and disciplined capital allocation. It is also working on bringing down operating costs by 20% across its European and central Units by the end of the financial year 2023.
Vodafone – FAQs
What does Vodafone do?
Vodafone (based in Newbury, the United Kingdom) is a telecommunication services firm that provides phone, text, and data services via mobile and fixed networks, as well as fixed broadband and television services, cloud and hosting, internet protocol-virtual private network services, roaming, and unified communications services.
Who founded Vodafone?
Vodafone was founded by Ernest Harrison and Gerry Whent in 1985.
When was Vodafone founded?
Vodafone was founded by Ernest Harrison and Gerry Whent in 1985.
How does Vodafone make money?
Vodafone’s mobile networks, which allow consumers to call, text, and download files, account for about 70% of its revenues and even more of its earnings. Fixed-line services, which include internet, TV, and voice, make for the majority of the remaining revenue.
Which companies do Vodafone compete with?
Vodafone’s top global competitors are : AT&T, BT, Orange, Telefonica, Deutsche Telekom, Telstra, Tata Communications, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation, Liberty Global and Telefonica Colombia.
Vodafone’s top competitors in India are Bhart Airtel, Reliance Jio, Tata Communications, etc.
Even during the pandemic, the net worth of many billionaires have been growing consistently. According to Forbes, the number of billionaires in the Forbes 35th list of the world wealthiest people, the number of billionaires have increased to 2,755, which was 660 more than a year ago.
Everyone knows that the richest person on the planet is Elon Musk with a net worth of $203.4 billion, followed by Jeff Bezos with $192.2 billion and Bernard Arnault & family with $185.8 billion, as of October 16, 2021. But do you know the top twenty richest people in Asia? According to Bloomberg Billionaire Index and the Forbes Billionaires List, the top 15 richest people in Asia, collectively account to over $500 billion.
The people in this list are self-made, big tech tycoons and real estate giants. The person who takes the top spot in the list of Asia is none other than India’s richest person, Mukesh Ambani who is the Chairman of the conglomerate, Reliance Industries Ltd. The other high profile billionaires from the continent are Jack Ma, Gautam Adani, Zhong Shanshan, Ma Huateng, Li Ka-Shing, etc. To find out who else made the top 20 according to Forbes.
Here is the list of the Top 20 Richest People in Asia.
1. Mukesh Ambani
Chairman/MD
Reliance Industries Ltd
Net Worth
US$100.6 billion (as of October 2021)
Industry
Energy, Telecom, Retail, Petrochemicals, Textiles and Natural Resources
Country
India
Age
64 (2021)
Mukesh Ambani
Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani is an Indian Billionaire Businessman, the Chairman, Managing Director and the largest shareholder of the Reliance Industries Ltd., which is an energy and telecom multinational conglomerate.
Reliance Industries owns business across India and has its foothold in the industries such as energy, petrochemicals, textiles, natural resources, retail and even telecommunications. The company is also in the list of the Fortune Global 500 Company and is the country most valuable company as per its market value.
Ambani is credited for creating Jio, an affordable 4G phone service in India. The billionaire also owns an Indian Premier League team known as the Mumbai Indians and also has a property worth more than $400 million. As of 16th October 2021, Mukesh Ambani is the richest person not only in India but also Asia with a net worth of US $100.6 billion and is also the 11th richest person in the world. The head honcho of Reliance India Limited has joined the coveted club of billionaires with a fortune of at least $100 billion on 8th October 2021, Friday, following the rapid rise of the stocks of the conglomerate.
2. Zhong Shanchan
Founder/ CEO
Nongfu Spring
Majority stake holder
Beijing Wantai Biological Pharmacy Enterprise
Net Worth
US$71.6 billion (as of 28th May 2021)
Industry
Beverage and Pharmacy
Country
China
Age
67
Zhong Shanshan
Zhong Shanshan is a Chinese billionaire businessman, the founder and chairman of Nongfu Spring which is a popular beverage company in China and a majority stake holder of Beijing Wantai Biological Pharmacy Enterprise.
Nongfu Spring is a bottled water and beverage company that went public in September 2020, the company recently tripled its value to $85 billion. As of 16th October 2021, the net worth of Shangshan is $71.6 billion, making him the richest person in China, the 2nd richest person in Asia after Gautam Adani.
He became the second richest person in Asia due to the recent stock listing of Nongfu and also because Wantai Biological managed to tap into the high demand of Covid 19 kits. Zhong Shanshan is also known to have accumulated his wealth the fastest in history, according to Bloomberg.
Resources, Logistics, Energy, Energy, Defence, Aerospace, Real Estate, Financial, etc.
Country
India
Age
59 (2021)
Gautam Adani
Gautam Shantilal Adani is an Indian Billionaire Industrialist, the Founder and Chairman of the Adani Group. Adani Group is an Indian multinational conglomerate that has diverse businesses across the industries of resources, logistics, energy, energy, defense, aerospace, real estate, financial, etc.
Adani Group has an annual revenue of more than US $13 billion with operations in more than 50 countries. Adani is especially known for being a port developer and operator and is known for having the largest port in the country known as the Mundra port.
As of 2018, Gautam Adani has over 66% stake in Adani Ports & SEZ, 75% stake in Adani Enterprises, 73% stake in Adani Power, and a 75% stake in Adani Transmission. As of 16th October 2021, Gautam Adani has a net worth of US $75.20 Billion, making him the second richest person in Asia. He had recently overtaken Chinese bottled water producer, Zhong Shanshan in September 2021.
4. Robin Zeng
Founder/ Chairman
Contemporary Amperex Technology
Net Worth
US $50.70 billion (as of October 2021)
Industry
Automotive Li-ion Batteries, Energy Storage Systems, Battery Recycling
Country
China
Age
53 (2021)
Robin Zeng
Robin Zeng also known as Zeng Yuqun is a Chinese billionaire entrepreneur, the Founder and Chairman of Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL).
The CATL is well known Chinese’s battery manufacturer and Technology Company that specializes in making lithium-ion battery for electric vehicles, battery management systems. Zeng is among the richest people in China and in Asia. With a net worth of $50.70 billion, he recently overtook Jack Ma, as per the reports dated October 16, 2021.
5. Ma Huateng
Chairman/MD
Tencent Holdings
Net Worth
US$49.10 billion (as of October 2021)
Industry
Technology
Country
China
Age
49 (2021)
Ma Huateng
Ma Huateng, also known as Pony Ma is a Chinese Billionaire Businessman, the Founder, Chairman and CEO of Tencent. Tencent is the continent’s most valuable company and one of the largest internet and Technology Company.
Besides , Tencent is also one of the biggest investment, gaming and entertainment conglomerate in the world known for developing China’s instant messaging app called WeChat. According to Time magazine Ma Huateng is one of the most influencial people in 2018, while Fortune also ranked him as among the top businessmen of the year in 2017.
The businessman wealth comes from the 9.7% stake in Tencent holdings. He is known to own properties in Hong Kong and art pieces that are worth over US $150 million. As of 16th October 2021, the net worth of Ma Huateng is US $49.10 billion, making him one of the richest people in China and the 5th richest person in Asia.
Zhang Yiming is a Chinese Billionaire Businessman and the Founder of ByteDance and developer for the news aggregator Toutiao and the world renowned video sharing platform TikTok. ByteDance is a Chinese multinational internet tech company known for developing video sharing and social networking sites like TikTok and Douyin.
ByteDance also developed an app known as Toutiao, which is a platform that delivers news content in various forms. As of 2018, ByteDance has over 800 million daily users across all its content platforms and has been valued at $250 billion as of 2021. According to Bloomberg billionaires index Zhang’s personal wealth is estimated to be around $44 billion.
Zhang Yiming stepped down from the position of CEO of Bytedance to embrace a new role within the company on 20th May 2021.
7. Jack Ma
Founder/ CEO
Alibaba Group
Net Worth
US$42.30 billion (as of October 2021)
Industry
Technology, E-commerce, Retail
Country
China
Age
56 (2021)
Jack Ma
Jack Ma is a Chinese billionaire businessman, the Founder and former Executive Chairman of Alibaba Group. Alibaba is a Multinational Technology Conglomerate that specializes in E-commerce, retail, technology and offers C2C, B2C and B2B sales, electronic payments, shopping search engines and cloud computing services.
Alibaba is the world largest retailers and e-commerce companies and has the 6th highest global brand valuation in 2018.Jack Ma was ranked 2nd in the Forbes list of the World 50 greatest leaders and is also a popular philanthropist as he has supported many underprivileged communities in China, Africa, Australia, and the Middle East.
As of 16th October 2021, the net worth of Jack Ma is US$42.3 billion making him a distinguished billionaire in China and the 7th richest person in Asia.
8. Li Ka Shing
Chairman
Li Ka Shing Foundation
Net Worth
US $31.80 Billion (As of October 2021)
Industry
Real Estate
Country
Hong Kong
Age
92 (2021)
Li Ka Shing is a Hong Kong businessman, an investor and well known philanthropist. He is the senior advisor and former chairman of the board for CK Hutchison Holdings and CK Asset Holdings. Li Ka Shing is 92 years old and is known to be the world leading port investor, developer and operator of the largest health and beauty and retailer in Asia and Europe.
According to Forbes Hong Kong Fortune league chart, Li Ka Shing became the richest person in Hong Kong in February 2021. Li is often regarded as “Superman li” by the Hong Kong media because of his business prowess, he also is the most influential entrepreneurs in the continent.
Li presides over a huge business empire that has its foothold in the industries such as transportation, real estate, financial services, retail, and energy and utilities. The billionaire is also a philanthropist that leads a simple life and has donated billions of dollars to charity and causes making him Asia most generous philanthropists.
As of 16th October 2021, Li Ka Shing net worth is over US $31.80 Billion making him one of the richest person in Hong Kong and among the richest in Asia.
9. He Xiangjian
Founder
Midea Group
Net Worth
US$31.70 billion (as of October 2021)
Industry
Consumer appliances
Country
China
Age
79 (2021)
He Xiangjian
He Xiangjian is the Co-founder of Midea Group, which is known to be one of the world’s largest appliance makers. Midea Group is electrical appliances manufacturer that has more than 200 subsidiaries.
The company is known for its products like lighting, water appliance, floor care, small kitchen appliance, laundry, cooking appliance and refrigeration appliances. According to Bloomberg Billionaire Index, Xiangjian was ranked the 44th place as his net worth was $32.7 billion in April 2021.
Media is also the world largest producers of robots and appliances which is why the company was also listed in the Fortune Global 500 since 2016. He Xiangjian stepped down from the company operation in 2012, but is still one among the richest in China and Asia with a wealth of $32.70 billion.
10. Lee Shau Kee
Founder/Chairman
Henderson Land Development
Net Worth
US $31.10 billion (as of October 2021)
Industry
Real Estate
Country
Hong Kong
Age
93 (2021)
Le Shau Kee
Le Shau Kee is a billionaire businessman from Hong Kong, real estate tycoon, founder and former chairman of Henderson Land Development. Henderson Land Development is a well known property conglomerate with stakes in property, hotels, restaurants and internet services.
The company’s main activities are property development, investment, project management, construction, hotel operation, finance, investment holding and infrastructure. The billionaire controlled over 70.17% of the share capital of the company as of 2015.
Kee stepped down from the position of chairman in 2019 at the age of 91 and passed the mantel to his sons. Le Shau Kee is one of the richest people in Hong Kong and in Asia. His net worth is estimated to be $31.10 billion, as of 16th October 2021.
11. Colin Huang
Founder/ CEO
Pinduoduo
Net Worth
US$31.10 billion (as of October 2021)
Industry
E-commerce, Agriculture
Country
China
Age
41 (2021)
Colin Huang
Colin Huang also known as Huang Zheng is a Chinese billionaire businessman, the Founder and CEO of Pinduoduo. Pinduoduo is a leading E-commerce and the largest agriculture-focused technology platform in China. Pinduoduo’s main objective is to connect farmers and distributors directly with the consumers and provide an interactive shopping experience.
Over 600,000 merchants have sold their produce through the platform with more than 12 million farmers supplying their fruits and vegetable to the merchants. According to Bloomberg, the platform has over 628 million customers and made $4.2 billion in 2019. Huang has also founded two other popular internet based companies known as Xinyoudi (a gaming business) and Ouku.com (an e-commerce platform).
The businessman has grown his wealth steadily in the recent years, climbing the global ranks from number 94 in 2019, to number 57 in 2020, and then 21. As of 16th October 2021, Colin Huang net worth is US$31.10 billion, which makes him the one of the richest people in China and the 11st richest person in Asia.
Tadashi Yanai is a Japanese Billionaire businessman, the Founder and President of Fast Retailing. Fast Retailing is public Japanese retail holding company that owns more than a 1000 stores. The company owns popular Japanese subsidiaries like Uniqlo, J brand, Comptoir des Cotonniers, GU, Princesse Tam Tam and Theory.
He is also the biggest shareholder of Asia’s largest clothing retailer known as Uniqlo. According to Bloomberg Billionaire Index, Tadashi Yanai became the richest person in Japan and the 34th richest person in the world, as his net worth was estimated to be $42.billion as of April 2021.
However, as of 16th October 2021, the billionaire’s net worth is US $32.5 billion, making him the richest person in Japan and among the richest in Asia.
13. Ding Lei
Founder/CEO
NetEase
Net Worth
US $29.8 billion (as of October 2021)
Industry
Technology
Country
China
Age
49 (2021)
Ding Lei is also known as William ding is a Chinese Billionaire businessman, the Founder and CEO of NetEase. NetEase is Internet Tech Company known for its services like content, community, communications and commerce. The company also develops online PC and mobile games, advertising services and e-commerce platforms in China.
NetEase is one of the largest internet and video game companies in the world. Besides gaming, NetEase works with other online media entertainment like movies and music. Ding Lei is known to have made many contributions to the development of computer networks in China, while his company work with Blizzard Entertainment and Microsoft subsidiary Mojang.
According to Bloomberg, the net worth of Ding Lei as of 16th October 2021 is $29.8 billion, making him one of the richest people in China and in Asia.
14. Wang Wei
Founder/Chairman
SF Express
Net Worth
US $28.8 billion (16th October 2021)
Industry
International express delivery and logistics services
Country
China
Age
50 (2021)
Wang Wei is a Chinese billionaire businessman, the Founder and Chairman of SF Express. SF Express is a multinational express delivery services and logistics company. The company is the 2nd largest courier in China as it provides domestic and international express delivery.
It is also known for the SF Airlines which has a fleet of 50 cargo aircrafts. SF Express began in 2009 and has transported more than two million tonnes of cargo till 2018. This is why the SF Express is known as the “Fedex of China.”
As of 16th October 2021, the net worth of Wang Wei is US $28.8 billion, making him one among the richest people in China as well as in Asia.
15. Takemitsu Takizaki
Founder/Chairman
Keyence
Net Worth
$28.5 billion (as of October 2021)
Industry
Technology
Country
Japan
Age
75 (2021)
Takemitsu Takizaki is a Japanese bilionaire businessman, founder and chairman of Keyence. Keyence is a well-known manufacturer of automation sensors, vision systems, barcode readers, laser markers, measuring instruments, and digital microscopes.
The company has many big brands as its clients Toyota, Toshiba, and Volkswagen. Takizaki stepped down as the company chairman but still has a net worth of $28.5 billion, as of 16th October 2021, making him one of the richest people in Japan and Asia.
16. Masayoshi Son
Founder/ CEO
Softbank
Net Worth
US$28.20 billion (as of October 2021)
Industry
Investment
Country
Japan
Age
63 (2021)
Masayoshi Son
Masayoshi Son is a Japanese billionaire entrepreneur, the Founder and CEO of SoftBank and also the chairman of the UK based Arm Holdings. Softbank is a well-known Japanese multinational holding company that operates in the areas of broadband, fixed-line telecommunications, e-commerce, internet, technology services, finance, media and marketing, semiconductor design, etc.
The company was also ranked 36th in the list of Forbes Global 2000. Masayoshi Son’s net worth is estimated to be $28.2 billion as of 16th October 2021, making him the one of the richest people in Japan and the 16th richest person in Asia. Masayoshi was also ranked as the 45th in the list of Most Powerful People, according to Forbes.
Country Garden Holdings and Bright Scholar Education Holdings
Net Worth
US $27.3 billion (as of August 2021)
Industry
Real Estate
Country
China
Age
40 (2021)
Yang Huiyan
Yang Huiyan is a Chinese billionaire businesswoman, Property developer and a majority stakeholder of Country Garden Holdings, 70% of shares of the company were transferred to her by her father Yang Guoqiang in 2007.
The Country Garden is a property development company that constructs buildings and manages hotels in China, owned by Yang’s family. The company was ranked 147thin the Fortunes Global 500 list. Country Garden has more than 200 high-end township developments in countries like China, Malaysia, and Australia.
As of August 2021, Yang Huiyan’s net worth is estimated to be $27.3 billion, making her not only the richest woman in China but also the richest woman in Asia.
Qin Yinglin is a Chinese billionaire, founder and chairman of Muyuan Foodstuff. Muyuan is a popular pig breeding and distribution company that breeds and sells pigs and pork products. Qin is known to have started the company with his wife in 1992, and by 2019 the company made $3 billion.
The agriculture billionaire is known to be the “the country’s largest pig breeder in the world’s biggest pork market”, according to Forbes. Qin is famous as the world’s richest farmer. His net worth is estimated to be $25 billion, as of 16th October 2021. This makes him one of the richest people in China and in Asia.
Pang Kang is a Chinese billionaire businessman and the chairman of a popular food and beverage company known as Foshan Haitian Flavoring and Food Co. The company manufactures a wide variety of sauces and flavoring, it is also the largest manufacturer of Soy Sauce in the world.
Based in China’s Guangdong providence, the food company made $2.9 billion in 2019, within five years of its launch. Foshan also makes over 200 different condiments such as oyster sauce, hoisin, shrimp, vinegar, and chicken stock.
As of 16th October 2021, the net worth of Pang Kang is over $23.80 billion, making him one of the richest people in China and in Asia as well.
20. Li Xiting
Founder/Chairman
Shenzhen Mindray Bio-Medical Electronics
Net Worth
US $21.30 billion (as of October 2021)
Industry
Medical Electronics
Country
Singapore
Age
70 (2021)
Li Xiting is a Singaporean billionaire, Founder and former Chairman of Shenzhen Mindray Bio-Medical Electronics. Over the year the billionaire has been one of the pioneers in the world of healthcare. While his company is known to operate in 30 countries and have over 17 subsidiaries.
Mindray is known for its healthcare devices such as health monitoring systems, ventilators, defibrillators, anesthesia machines and infusion systems. According to Forbes, Li Xiting is the richest person in Singapore in 2020. As of 16th October 2021, the net worth of Li Xiting is $21.30 billion, making him the richest Singaporean and among the richest people in Asia.
Who are the top three richest people of the world?
The top three billionaires of the world are Elon Musk, with a net worth of $203.4 billion, followed by Jeff Bezos with $197.7 billion and Bernard Arnault with $193.2 billion, as of 16th October 2021.
Who are the top ten richest people of Asia?
The top ten richest billionaires of Asia are Mukesh Ambani, Zhong Shanchan, Gautam Adani, Robin Zeng, Ma Huateng, Zhang Yiming, Jack Ma, Li Ka Shing, He Xiangjian, Le Shau Kee.
Who are the other top people of Asia?
The other top billionaires of Asia are He Xiangjian, Ding Lei, Li Ka Shing, Yang Huiyan, Wang Wei, Pang Kang, Li Xiting, Qin Yinglin and Takemitsu Takizaki.
On 28th August, it was announced that Bharti Airtel might get an investment of up to thousands of crores from Google. According to sources, Google and Airtel were in talks for over a year and are currently said to be in the advanced stages of negotiations. Airtel is also planning other fundraising options as it had a debt of Rs 1.6 lakh crore in June 2020 because it was unable to raise tariffs freely.
Google had earlier invested over Rs 33,737 crore in Reliance industries digital subsidiary, Jio Platforms Ltd in order to get a stake of over 7.73% in the Jio platforms which is currently the main rival of Airtel. Both Google and Airtel have not made any formal announcements regarding the upcoming deal, but media sources say that Google’s investment in Airtel will be several thousand crores of rupees.
The details of the partnership are being worked up by the executives of both the companies, while their internal and external legal and M&A teams are involved with sorting out the smaller details of the arrangement.
According to one of the Analysts, “The entry of Google adds strength to the balance sheet of Airtel. Also, it helps the company strategically as Google brings in innovation capabilities and strength on data analytics. Google’s data monetization is far superior to any other company in the world, and it can help Airtel monetize its data much better to improve its realizations and profitability.”
The analyst also added that, Google may have big reasons to why it’s investing in Airtel as, “If anything goes wrong tomorrow, your (Google) credibility in the market goes out even though it will be limited liability. To save its name, the company will have to settle its dues in case Airtel is not able to move ahead due to financial pressures and starts slipping down.”
How will this deal benefit Airtel?
If this deal is successful, it will be a major help to Airtel as it is currently facing many problem because of its competitors like Reliance Jio that are providing data at cheaper prices. Jio was the reason behind disrupting the successful financial model of the industry. Other Telecom companies like Vodafone and Idea Cellular were forced to merge because of the stiff competition from Jio.
Google’s investment and data monetization methods have the possibilities to help Airtel to become successful, earn more money and work on its profitability. Airtel is also raising more funds so it can increase the capacity of its 4G networks around India. This investment by Google can also help the telecom company to set a lot of things in order, pay off the debts to the government and also invest in 4G and 5G networks.
In July 2020, Google announced that it had set aside $10 billion funds to invest in the startups of India over the course of five to seven years. The investment was said to be in the form of investments, seed investments, partnerships among other arrangements. This was planned in order to accelerate digitization in India and reduce the gap in the Indian tech investments ecosystem.
This fund was said to be invested in the sectors of consumer tech, education, health, agriculture, technology, AR &VR, and helping SMEs. This fund initiative was called the Google for India Digitization Fund as it aimed in helping Indian companies to grow in their Google portfolio.
This morning, had an extremely fruitful interaction with @sundarpichai. We spoke on a wide range of subjects, particularly leveraging the power of technology to transform the lives of India’s farmers, youngsters and entrepreneurs. pic.twitter.com/IS9W24zZxs
Google has made numerous investments in Indian startups and ventures over the few years. In 2013, Google has invested Rs 3.13 crore in Sana Ventures as a part of a seed round funding and the same year it also invested Rs 3 crore in Agastya International Foundation. After that in 2017, it went on to invest Rs 3 crore in CueMath which is a well-known online Edtech company. In 2020, Google also invested over $27,500,000 in the series E funding of Aye Finance which is a Gurugram based Fintech Company.
It also invested over $12 million in Dunzo an Indian delivery company in 2021. In 2020, Google invested $100 million for DailyHunt and an undisclosed amount in Glance which is both news platforms. The same year’s Google invested over Rs 33,737 crore in Jio Platform which is the digital subsidiary of the conglomerate Reliance Industries. This investment led to Google claiming a 7.73 % stake in Jio Platform and helped Jio clearing its debt ahead of its March 2021 target.
The success of a company is just the tip of the iceberg below which lies the business model of the company.
Hard work and dedication to the services, funds from other companies, and robust marketing strategies are some prominent factors that drive a company towards success, but the business model can be deemed as the base of the company, on which the business is built. The business model is nothing but a company’s plan to make a profit which is why it plays a major role in new and well-established companies as well.
With the world today that is encouraging more and more businesses to grow, only some manage to evolve to their full potential. One of such businesses that have stood up with their robust business model and have become a key player in the telecommunication industry is Airtel. Here, we will walk through their business model and how it helped the company carve a niche for itself.
Bharti Airtel, also known as Airtel, is one of the leading multinational telecommunication service providers of India based out of New Delhi, India. It boasts of over 457 million subscribers, holds second place in India’s mobile networks and third place in the world’s mobile networks. Millward Brown and WPP plc have named Airtel as India’s second most valuable brand in their Brandz ranking. In addition to these, Airtel is the first-ever multinational telecommunication service to launch 4G in India.
Areas of Operation
Initially starting from India, Airtel has witnessed significant growth and is now successfully operating in around 18 countries, which includes South Asia, Africa, and the Channel Islands.
Key Products and Services
Over time Airtel has expanded as a company and has begun to offer a wide range of services that include 2G, 4G, 4G+ networks, fixed-line broadband, and voice services.
Here’s a quick rundown along with the main service belts that Airtel offers:
Telemedia – Under the Telemedia segment Airtel offers broadband internet via DSL, leased internet lines, MPLS solutions, IPTV, and fixed-line telephone services. Their control over the Telemedia segment allows them to offer differentiated and converged solutions to customers.
Television – Airtel is also associated with the provision of the direct television network or DTH (Direct-to-home) TV services across the nation with their Airtel digital TV.
Mobile data – Airtel also provides BlackBerry services that work on push-on technology, USB modems, Airtel data cards, easy mail, and its own mobile application that helps its customers monitor all their services and packages bundled in on the app.
Airtel business – Airtel Business comprises of six main products, which are, Cloud and managed services, digital signage, NLD/ILD connectivity, dongles for Wi-Fi, voice solutions, and conferencing solutions that serve a range of industry verticals including BFSI, IT/ITeS, manufacturing, hospitality, and government.
Android Tablets – With a view to capitalize on the growing demands for cost-effective, portable devices, Airtel has launched its first 7-inch tablet running on the Android operating system in 2011 via Beetel Teletech Ltd.
Mobile wallet service – Airtel offers the mobile wallet service which allows Airtel users to make payments for utility bills, goods, and services in addition to money transfers across networks. It is done using the airtel money app that runs on Android, iOS, and windows.
Target Audiences of Airtel
Being a telecommunication service provider the target audience of Airtel is really wide and is not influenced by age, gender, place of residence, income, social distinction, and any such factors. Airtel has an array of different services that attract both individuals and companies across varied industries.
Airtel showcases an exemplary business model for others to follow irrespective of the industry that each belongs to. Airtel focuses mainly on two things: customer acquisition and servicing (retention) and business development or expansion. Their vision and mission clearly state that their ultimate goal is to be a globally admired telecom service and to mainly focus on customer satisfaction and provide them innovative services that tend to be cost-efficient products.
The other functions that include hardware, network management, backend applications (billing, etc.), and other services are outsourced. This business model has been pioneered by Airtel and inspires many newcomers in the game.
What is unique in the business model of Airtel?
As we have already mentioned, Airtel believes in outsourcing everything else apart from their marketing, sales, and finance operations and the ‘minutes factory’ model of low cost and high volumes.
Airtel is widely recognized as the pioneer of such a strategy, inspiring tens of thousands of other brands and entrepreneurs. The equipment of Airtel is also provided and maintained by other companies namely Ericsson, Huawei, and Nokia Networks; and US-based Amdocs provides Airtel with the IT support that the brand requires.
In its business model, Airtel has underlined some key points that they term as strategic business pillars for their businesses. These are:
Focus on Quality customers – Airtel aims to provide value for their customers along with the differentiated services that they provide.
Opening doors for new revenues – The brand is now helping its non-mobile wings like Airtel Business, Digital TV, and Broadband services to grow along with an eye to bring in new verticals.
Providing Top-of-the-line services – Airtel aims to bring in the best possible network quality to their customers with the help of cutting-edge infrastructure and advanced automation tools and technology.
Employee-centric culture – Along with investing huge on the digital talent, Airtel makes sure that it hands over significant roles to each of its employees and ensures they grow along with the firm.
Eco-friendly approach – Airtel advocates the reduction of overuse of resources and cutting down its operational expenses to the minimum with an eye on the environment.
Along with its basic strategies as Airtel business plan, it is working on future strategies, to retain its top position, such as bringing more innovation in its services, exploring new plans and products, providing valuable and quality services to its customers.
How does Airtel make money through its business model?
Airtel makes money through all the products and services mentioned above. It uses a B2C model to derive income from its customers and a B2B model, registered under Airtel Business that helps startups and SMEs. Airtel stands out with its unique business model that aims to provide the customers with the best services at competitive prices.
It is to be remembered that Airtel is not one of the companies that have achieved fast growth but one that stands as a market leader purely because it has innovated things and earned its place. Furthermore, it is also one of the few telecommunications services providers that have realized the importance of value-added services (VAS) right away in the start, which further eased its way.
Airtel’s competition with other companies
Airtel snatched the market from Essar by providing services before them and holding the position until them with the help of high usage premium clients.
Telecommunication services mainly have two important characteristics which are quality and price of the service, with that said, Airtel makes sure that they establish service by giving high importance to the characteristics and being a high-quality service provider with a premium image.
Conclusion
Airtel has witnessed gradual growth and has emerged as a promising brand in the telecommunications sector with the help of a foolproof business model, a meticulous understanding of its key concepts, years of hard work, tireless efforts, and absolute dedication. Airtel success story surely is a huge inspiration to legions of other businesses across different domains.
FAQs
What is the revenue of Airtel?
The revenue of Airtel was ₹89,473 crore (US$13 billion) in 2020.
Who is the CEO of Airtel?
Gopal Vittal is the current CEO of Airtel.
What is the debt of Airtel?
In the financial year 2020, Bharti Airtel Limited reported a net debt of about 1188 billion Indian rupees.
