Jio To Likely To Be Used By 48% Of Indian Mobile Users By 2025: Forecast Report

Reliance Jio is likely to capture 48 percent of Indian mobile subscriber market share by 2025 with over half a billion users, said Bernstein in a report on Wednesday.

"At our last model update in December, we proclaimed Reliance Jio the new king of Indian telecommunications. Since then, we have seen a multitude of international investors reach the same conclusion," the analyst said in the report.

Starting with Facebook buying 9.99 percent stake in Jio Platforms, Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) monetised 22.38 percent in its digital arm to raise Rs 1.04 lakh crore in less than eight weeks.

"While we expect strategic cooperation between Facebook and other parts of the Reliance Group, we believe most of the other investments are passive. Reliance gets access to much needed capital to assist in paying down debt, and these investors get early access to the leading telco platform in India," it said.

Bernstein expects an initial public offer (IPO) of Jio sometime over the next few years as its market share approaches 50 percent. "By then ARPUs (average revenue per user) will have improved and we expect service revenue will double over the next three years."

It projected Jio's mobile subscriber base to cross 500 million mark in FY23, up from 388 million in FY20. The subscriber base is expected to touch 569 million in FY25 and 609 million in FY28.

Jio's market share is expected to rise from 36 per cent in FY20 to 40 per cent in the current fiscal and to 48 per cent in FY25, it said.