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FORTUNE.COM // SEPTEMBER 2019
MOBILE
India’s Wireless
Wonder
How an Indian telecom company went from
zero to 331 million subscribers in three years.
By Aaron Pressman
THERE’S A NEW KING of telecom in India:
Reliance Jio Infocomm, the wireless
carrier created by multibillionaire Mukesh Ambani,
which ranked No. 1 on last year’s Change the World
list. The network had 331 million subscribers at the
end of June, exceeding Vodafone Idea (320 million
customers) for the first time. Owned by Ambani’s
energy and retailing giant, Reliance Industries
Ltd. (RIL), the telecom company could become the
foundation of an online and e-commerce platform
in India that rivals Alibaba in China and Amazon in
the U.S., analysts at UBS predict.
It’s an amazing feat for the carrier, which started
offering mobile service for free just three years ago
before converting subscribers to still-cheap data
plans in 2017. Currently, one Jio plan charges just
three rupees per gigabyte of data used, equal to 5¢,
and is ranked as the cheapest rate in the world.
To create the low-cost carrier, Ambani spent
billions to build a thoroughly modern wireless net-
work that supports only 4G standards, bypassing
older 2G and 3G technology, and relies on the kind
of routers and equipment used to build the Internet
instead of on more specialized—and expensive—
telecommunications
switching gear.
Ambani’s wireless
price war is eating his
competitors. While
Jio said net profit in
the quarter ending
June 30 jumped
46%, to $130 mil-
lion, Vodafone Idea
lost $690 million and
third-ranked Airtel
lost $410 million.
Both had been profit-
able a year earlier.
Reliance has been
expanding its offer-
ings into e-commerce
and cloud services,
leading UBS analysts
to make the compari-
son to top Internet
companies. “Can RIL
evolve into India’s
Amazon/Alibaba/
Walmart? Yes,” the
analysts concluded.
With Ambani’s deep
pockets and will-
ingness to cost-cut
his way to industry
domination, it’s cer-
tainly plausible.Customers
line up for
Jio services
offered in
Mumbai.HIGH DINING
BEFORE Sept. 11,
2001, the restau-
rant Windows on the
World was figuratively
and literally at the
pinnacle of fine din-
ing in America. It was
one of the highest-
grossing restaurants
in the nation and the
loftiest, sitting on
the 107th floor of the
North Tower of the
World Trade Center.
Tom Roston’s The
Most Spectacular
Restaurant in the
World (Abrams Press)
opens with the
inevitable prologue
set on the restau-
rant’s final morn-
ing. But the book
offers a completely
new perspective on
the history of the
acclaimed establish-
ment, which opened
its doors in 1976. This
isn’t just an account
of the restaurant but
also a history of fine
dining over the past
150 years, rooted in
the emergence of
New York’s restaurant
culture and follow-
ing the ebb and flow
of the city’s own
tumultuous history
over the second half
of the 20th century.
—RACHEL KING