Three years after nudging into the Indian wireless phone market with free calls and data, billionaire Mukesh Ambani is back at it.
This time, Asia’s richest man is handing out TVs for fascinating users on movies and entertainment shows via internet. The tycoon is jamming into a business teeming with players from rival mobile carriers to Netflix Inc. and Amazon.com Inc.
Ambani’s JioFiber broadband service, scheduled to start Thursday(Today) allover India, comes with a high-definition television and set-top boxes at no charge for annual lifetime subscribers. The offer by Reliance Jio Info comm Ltd., the tycoon’s wireless powerhouse, includes subscriptions to most premium streaming services with prices starting from Rs 700 per month.
The fiber-TV salvo comes days after Jio formally swept into the No. 1 spot for wireless services after free calls and cheap data attracted hundreds of millions of subscribers and left rivals Bharti Airtel Ltd. and Vodafone Idea Ltd. struggling. Airtel, backed by tycoon Sunil Mittal, and billionaire Kumar Mangalam Birla’s Idea are also trying to gain attention of the users by offering access to TV and movie content.
Telecom carriers around the world are adding entertainment content to their offerings as a way to compete for users and add revenue.In India, video-on-demand growth itself is a hot topic, according to researcher Boston Consulting Group.