Telecom companies must innovate to avoid disruption: Reliance Jio top exec

New Delhi: India’s mobile phone companies must invest and innovate beyond traditional voice and data offerings, else they run the risk of being disrupted by aggressive rivals or app makers, a top executive at Reliance Jio said.“For service providers, just voice or even traditional data revenue alone is not going to be the cure. They have to invest and innovate so that they would not get displaced by other aggressive providers or more importantly by OTT companies,” Jio president Mathew Oommen told ET.India’s older players Bharti Airtel and Vodafone India have been blamed by some for not having invested enough in infrastructure and innovation in the lead up to Jio’s entry in 2016, which has allowed them to be disrupted to such an extent that both are in the red, having seen the revenue plummet amid a brutal price war. The incumbents have also been blamed for not keeping pace with times, allowing overthe-top (OTT) players such as WhatsApp and Skype to eat into their traditional voice and SMS revenue over the last few years.Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea have previously rejected the views. “This is just the start of the telco disruption and accelerated consumer mobile broadband and digital adoption,” Oommen said, adding that if services like augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and HD video content are provided at affordable rates, people would consume, and telcos could face more disruption.Taking a different track to incumbent telcos, Jio has urged the telecom department to hold early 4G and 5G airwaves auctions.Jio Cinema Joins Hands with DisneyMumbai: Jio Cinema, a digital app of Reliance Jio, has tied up with Disney to provide a dedicated section on Disney, Pixar, Marvel and Lucas films to its over 250 million subscribers. “...the app will host a dedicated Disney-branded section on the homepage with content spanning across movies, animation, series and shorts,” the firm said. (Our Bureau)

from Economic Times http://bit.ly/2Vf0GTT