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India | Telecom | 110M subscribers on-boarded in 100 days To summarize: Jio, which is our cellular telephony play, now is the world's largest cellular data net

by erbdex 9y ago

India | Telecom | 110M subscribers on-boarded in 100 days To summarize: Jio, which is our cellular telephony play, now is the world's largest cellular data network (pumping 22,000 TB per day) and onboards a million customers a day! We now have 110 million subscribers (in ~100 days). This became possible when the telco regulators here gave a go ahead to use the Govt of India's pet biometric auth project Aadhaar[1] to accept electronic KYCs(proof of identity+address). A typical SIM issue took us <3m enabling Jio to issue 1M+ SIM cards a day in a developing country where printouts of PoI and PoA were mandatory. This infrastructure as the physical layer coupled with the fact that India has 40% YoY growth rate in Internet penetration[2] has opened up a fintech opportunity in a $50B market that BCG and Google estimate[3] to be in the tune of $500B+ by 2020. Disclosure: I work with JioMoney's product team in Bangalore. We are building the payments infrastructure on top of Jio and other telcos. We're hiring![4] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aadhaar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aadhaar 2. http://www.kpcb.com/blog/2016-internet-trends-report http://www.kpcb.com/blog/2016-internet-trends-report 3. http://image-src.bcg.com/BCG_COM/BCG-Google%20Digital%20Payments%202020-July%202016_tcm21-39245.pdf http://image-src.bcg.com/BCG_COM/BCG-Google%20Digital%20Paym... 4. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14030014 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14030014

koolba 9y ago
Holy shit are those numbers real? 1M paying subscribers added a day? I'm guessing this is prepay with cards / top ups right? If so the cash play becomes amazing too.
- ramshanker 9y ago
  Yes , all those numbers are true. Ever since I subscribed to JIO I have stopped switching off my cellular Data !! Vacated all music out of phone memory for others useful apps. Now audio on streaming only.
- erbdex 9y ago
  "One rival executive reckons Jio is carrying more data than either China Mobile or AT&T, the world’s two most valuable operators." http://www.economist.com/news/business/21718495-jios-100m-new-customers-cost-cool-25bn-acquire-mukesh-ambani-has-made-business-worlds http://www.economist.com/news/business/21718495-jios-100m-ne...
oretoz 9y ago
I have not really followed the fintech much but understand the Telecom side of things. You seem like an expert on this space in India and hence my questions: 1. Do you think making everything Aadhar based is a good idea? 2. How much awareness is there about privacy issues related to Aadhar? 3. What risk do you see which would derail the $500B projection for Fintech in India? Also it wasn't clear if that projection was the total payment transactions or the market opportunity for players (e.g. commissions etc.).
- erbdex 9y ago
  I'll get back on this. Looping in people who understand this space better.
- throwaway423447 9y ago
  A particular section (to which I belong) is quite afraid with the direction India is taking. Reddit /r/india has many discussions along lines that I'll summarize. - Aadhar was forced into being without legislation or check/balances. - The guy heading it is Nilekani, a not so ethical dude, who once ran Infy, and has quite a lot of influence with the right people, both in the US and India.[1] - Previous admin. was likely planning on making it mandatory "citizen id", but was pushed back by the courts. - Current admin. has magically turned back on their erstwhile opposition due to "a presentation" and have finally made it mandatory, for everything from passports, SIM cards, and tax refunds. - Aadhar has no legislative curtailment. There is nothing stopping them from forcing the collection of my DNA, and then selling those to some insurance company in a few years. - There is also nothing stopping the vogons in the Indian state (and the corporatocracy it serves) from getting hold of all my data... because you know "national security". Accountability is the last thing you'd expect of the Indian state; transparency probably being penultimate. - This means that anyone who declines to be part of the Animal farm, can neither leave the country nor work there. Jaitley really screwed us over. Naturally this is dressed up as a "us- vs-them" "nationalistic" "black-money hunting" "anti-western/left" move, and this is what comments on Indian newssites reflect. Ironic that the system will be used to clamp down even harder on the people who belong to a English colony run by Brown sahibs, which has made it its goal to destroy every culture, language and religion that are its heritage. - Next stop is likely the complete destruction of cash (and thus opposition), by tying it all back to Aadhar (which the parent is cheering for). Very very scary future.. will be moving out before the prison cell closes shut. [1] India's IT Industry does not serve India; now that the outsourcing play is coming to a halt, many are looking to diversify. One way out is to secure massive contracts from the state.
carlmungz 9y ago
Wow - those stats are definitely impressive. What's the best way to reach you? Would love to talk more about this.
- erbdex 9y ago
  erbdex at G's mail.
pavlov 9y ago
An interesting article on Jio from The Economist: http://www.economist.com/news/business/21718495-jios-100m-new-customers-cost-cool-25bn-acquire-mukesh-ambani-has-made-business-worlds http://www.economist.com/news/business/21718495-jios-100m-ne... By their math, acquiring those 100 million customers cost 25 billion USD. The writer is sceptical that Jio will ever make that money back. Personally I think it's awesome that an Indian billionaire is spending his money on local digital infrastructure. Even if Jio doesn't become hugely profitable, its network seems to be a boon to India.
- johnnydoe9 9y ago
  They beta tested the sim cards only on their own Lyf branded phones which are some of the cheapest 4G phones available. They plan on releasing more phones, an FTTH broadband service, they already have movies and music streaming services, they have small portable wifi hotspot devices, there's news that they'll enter the D2H TV service market too. I think they'll make their money back with a combination of the hardware and services. The competition has been the biggest boon for the public even more so than the services they're offering, forced every major network to lower their prices which I hope will have a good long term effect for the public.
8sigma 9y ago
I will be downvoted for saying this: Most of the subscribers were issued 5 sims per aadhar number.In that sense its really around 20 million subscribers each with around 5 sims in their name.And anybody can be sure that they aren't using all the issued sims.Also most of the subscribers have stopped using the sims after the freebies was called off.
- erbdex 9y ago
  I don't think HN would downvote you for having an alternative datapoint. =) That said, you are right to a degree but the only multiple sim holding report I saw was Truecaller saying that 46% of its installs are people with dual sims. This was last year. I'd love to hear about your sources and proxies about 5. That said, there are multiple longer run plays here: - onboarding 1M/SIMs/day. - pumping that much data volume/day. - commoditisation of data packs. - this is just the data layer of digital infra, value layers over this would be built in next 2-5 years. It is a sub percentage point of GDP growth if you measure not just the ARPU that Jio makes, but what every business makes here on top of this. - productivity growth is hard to measure in terms of short run revenue of one company. This is digital infrastructure akin to roadways, railroads and electricity.
giis 9y ago
+1 for Jio entry. So far existing vendors like airtel,vodafone are robbing customers. We used to pay 250Rs(~4usd) for 1GB 3G/4G data. Now with Jio entries, prices came down to 30GB/250rs. Benefits the end-user.
throwaway423447 9y ago
It should be noted that this was achieved by giving 6 months of 4G data (1GB/day at > 6Mbps) + free telephony, for a mere $6. Things should normalize once the freebies stop; Jio however will have a massive collection of Indians Biometric identities (and much else skimmed off of "Big Brother" Aadhar) and their browsing habits, which we currently have no idea how they'll exploit. Worse, we have no regulation over Aadhar's data-sharing, nor over the privacy of citizens. India's state telephony company now injects ads into non-HTTPS sites, and tracks users using the services of a private company. Considering Ambani's complete lack of basic ethics, one can be sure that they'll be much more clever with it than the generic dolts at BSNL.
- anilgulecha 9y ago
  > Jio however will have a massive collection of Indians Biometric identities Citation or shut up. I'm no fan of Aadhar but even a cursory look into it's authentication shows that it does not share this information with services. It only acts as a o-auth like service.
  - throwaway68655 9y ago
    Are you stupid ? Because it strikes me that you are phenomenally so. While Aadhar does not share biometric features, by being an authentication oracle, it makes it trivial for any massive organization like Jio to build their own second-party 'verified by Aadhar' databases which have even fewer legislative regulations (if that were at all possible). So no, "we" will not "shut up".

by erbdex 9y ago

koolba 9y ago

Holy shit are those numbers real? 1M paying subscribers added a day? I'm guessing this is prepay with cards / top ups right? If so the cash play becomes amazing too.

ramshanker 9y ago
Yes , all those numbers are true. Ever since I subscribed to JIO I have stopped switching off my cellular Data !! Vacated all music out of phone memory for others useful apps. Now audio on streaming only.
erbdex 9y ago
"One rival executive reckons Jio is carrying more data than either China Mobile or AT&T, the world’s two most valuable operators." http://www.economist.com/news/business/21718495-jios-100m-new-customers-cost-cool-25bn-acquire-mukesh-ambani-has-made-business-worlds http://www.economist.com/news/business/21718495-jios-100m-ne...

oretoz 9y ago

I have not really followed the fintech much but understand the Telecom side of things. You seem like an expert on this space in India and hence my questions: 1. Do you think making everything Aadhar based is a good idea? 2. How much awareness is there about privacy issues related to Aadhar? 3. What risk do you see which would derail the $500B projection for Fintech in India? Also it wasn't clear if that projection was the total payment transactions or the market opportunity for players (e.g. commissions etc.).

erbdex 9y ago
I'll get back on this. Looping in people who understand this space better.
throwaway423447 9y ago
A particular section (to which I belong) is quite afraid with the direction India is taking. Reddit /r/india has many discussions along lines that I'll summarize. - Aadhar was forced into being without legislation or check/balances. - The guy heading it is Nilekani, a not so ethical dude, who once ran Infy, and has quite a lot of influence with the right people, both in the US and India.[1] - Previous admin. was likely planning on making it mandatory "citizen id", but was pushed back by the courts. - Current admin. has magically turned back on their erstwhile opposition due to "a presentation" and have finally made it mandatory, for everything from passports, SIM cards, and tax refunds. - Aadhar has no legislative curtailment. There is nothing stopping them from forcing the collection of my DNA, and then selling those to some insurance company in a few years. - There is also nothing stopping the vogons in the Indian state (and the corporatocracy it serves) from getting hold of all my data... because you know "national security". Accountability is the last thing you'd expect of the Indian state; transparency probably being penultimate. - This means that anyone who declines to be part of the Animal farm, can neither leave the country nor work there. Jaitley really screwed us over. Naturally this is dressed up as a "us- vs-them" "nationalistic" "black-money hunting" "anti-western/left" move, and this is what comments on Indian newssites reflect. Ironic that the system will be used to clamp down even harder on the people who belong to a English colony run by Brown sahibs, which has made it its goal to destroy every culture, language and religion that are its heritage. - Next stop is likely the complete destruction of cash (and thus opposition), by tying it all back to Aadhar (which the parent is cheering for). Very very scary future.. will be moving out before the prison cell closes shut. [1] India's IT Industry does not serve India; now that the outsourcing play is coming to a halt, many are looking to diversify. One way out is to secure massive contracts from the state.

carlmungz 9y ago

Wow - those stats are definitely impressive. What's the best way to reach you? Would love to talk more about this.

erbdex 9y ago
erbdex at G's mail.

pavlov 9y ago

An interesting article on Jio from The Economist: http://www.economist.com/news/business/21718495-jios-100m-new-customers-cost-cool-25bn-acquire-mukesh-ambani-has-made-business-worlds http://www.economist.com/news/business/21718495-jios-100m-ne... By their math, acquiring those 100 million customers cost 25 billion USD. The writer is sceptical that Jio will ever make that money back. Personally I think it's awesome that an Indian billionaire is spending his money on local digital infrastructure. Even if Jio doesn't become hugely profitable, its network seems to be a boon to India.

johnnydoe9 9y ago
They beta tested the sim cards only on their own Lyf branded phones which are some of the cheapest 4G phones available. They plan on releasing more phones, an FTTH broadband service, they already have movies and music streaming services, they have small portable wifi hotspot devices, there's news that they'll enter the D2H TV service market too. I think they'll make their money back with a combination of the hardware and services. The competition has been the biggest boon for the public even more so than the services they're offering, forced every major network to lower their prices which I hope will have a good long term effect for the public.

8sigma 9y ago

I will be downvoted for saying this: Most of the subscribers were issued 5 sims per aadhar number.In that sense its really around 20 million subscribers each with around 5 sims in their name.And anybody can be sure that they aren't using all the issued sims.Also most of the subscribers have stopped using the sims after the freebies was called off.

erbdex 9y ago
I don't think HN would downvote you for having an alternative datapoint. =) That said, you are right to a degree but the only multiple sim holding report I saw was Truecaller saying that 46% of its installs are people with dual sims. This was last year. I'd love to hear about your sources and proxies about 5. That said, there are multiple longer run plays here: - onboarding 1M/SIMs/day. - pumping that much data volume/day. - commoditisation of data packs. - this is just the data layer of digital infra, value layers over this would be built in next 2-5 years. It is a sub percentage point of GDP growth if you measure not just the ARPU that Jio makes, but what every business makes here on top of this. - productivity growth is hard to measure in terms of short run revenue of one company. This is digital infrastructure akin to roadways, railroads and electricity.

giis 9y ago

+1 for Jio entry. So far existing vendors like airtel,vodafone are robbing customers. We used to pay 250Rs(~4usd) for 1GB 3G/4G data. Now with Jio entries, prices came down to 30GB/250rs. Benefits the end-user.

throwaway423447 9y ago

It should be noted that this was achieved by giving 6 months of 4G data (1GB/day at > 6Mbps) + free telephony, for a mere $6. Things should normalize once the freebies stop; Jio however will have a massive collection of Indians Biometric identities (and much else skimmed off of "Big Brother" Aadhar) and their browsing habits, which we currently have no idea how they'll exploit. Worse, we have no regulation over Aadhar's data-sharing, nor over the privacy of citizens. India's state telephony company now injects ads into non-HTTPS sites, and tracks users using the services of a private company. Considering Ambani's complete lack of basic ethics, one can be sure that they'll be much more clever with it than the generic dolts at BSNL.

anilgulecha 9y ago
> Jio however will have a massive collection of Indians Biometric identities Citation or shut up. I'm no fan of Aadhar but even a cursory look into it's authentication shows that it does not share this information with services. It only acts as a o-auth like service.
- throwaway68655 9y ago
  Are you stupid ? Because it strikes me that you are phenomenally so. While Aadhar does not share biometric features, by being an authentication oracle, it makes it trivial for any massive organization like Jio to build their own second-party 'verified by Aadhar' databases which have even fewer legislative regulations (if that were at all possible). So no, "we" will not "shut up".