Reliance Jio To Be Among Top 100 Global Brands In 3 Years: Report
Reliance Jio Infocomm, the telecom arm of billionaire Mukesh Ambani-led conglomerate Reliance Industries, will be among 100 most valuable brands globally within three years, according to a report by communication services provider WPP and market research firm Kantar Millward Brown. The report titled "BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brand for 2019", which stated that Indian consumers see Reliance Jio as "meaningfully different", comes less than two weeks after the company rolled out its fiber-based fixed-line broadband service JioFiber.
"True 'disruption' to me is where a new brand or proposition enters a market and impacts or re-defines a particular category in a way that benefits all consumers, whether they are a customer of that particular brand, or not. Jio, the Indian telecom provider, is a good example," said Martin Guerrieria, Global BrandZ research director at Kantar.
Reliance Jio, which disrupted the Indian telecom provider category with its deep discount prices for data consumption, now has a subscription base of over 340 million. Jio's current brand value is $4.1 billion, according to the report.
"At launch, Jio provided free data for the first six months and only then introduced comparatively modest pricing," Mr Guerrieria said.
"Jio immediately built a lot of volume. Customers of market leaders Airtel and Vodafone also felt the benefit of the 'Jio effect' as they were forced to drop their data prices to compete and retain customers," he added.
E-commerce giant Amazon this year surpassed Apple and Google to reach the No. 1 rank in the BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands.
With a 52 per cent year-on-year increase, Amazon achieved a brand value of $315.5 billion.