Reliance Jio Infocomm, the telecom unit of Reliance Industries, is to more than treble its headcount this year.
“From less than 700 professionals a year back, most of them based in our Navi Mumbai (New Bombay) campus, the Reliance Jio team has grown rapidly to a national footprint of over 3,000 professionals today. And we estimate that over the next year, we will grow the team further to a national strength of nearly 10,000 professionals,” Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani told shareholders at the 39th annual general meeting of the company.
Reliance Jio is the only company to have nationwide permits for 4G services, but is yet to start commercial services. The company is expected to launch 4G broadband services by March next, with Mumbai, Delhi, Jamnagar and Kolkata featuring in the first round of roll out.
In the last one year, Reliance Jio has taken significant strides ‘towards engineering and testing a world-class broadband network, and in developing a suite of compelling and synergistic digital services,’ Ambani said. The company has finalised the key vendor and supplier partnerships that are required for the initial launch of its services.
“Together with our partners, we have charted an ambitious plan for the next 12 months, and we at Reliance Jio foresee making rapid progress over this period towards launching our services across India,” he said.
The prices of broadband services in India are set to drastically fall once RIL launches 4G services.
Earlier this year, Reliance Jio inked an international data connectivity agreement with Bharti Airtel and optic network sharing deal with Anil Ambani-promoted Reliance Communications in preparations for the 4G launch.