Wireless Warfare

The September launch of Jio, the long-awaited 4G phone service of oil and gas giant Reliance Industries (Reliance Industries is the owner of Network18, publishers of Forbes India), unleashed a price war in India’s hyper competitive telecom market with an offer of a four-month free trial followed by free voice calls and messaging and low-priced data services.

- Naazneen Karmali

Stocks of incumbents, including telecom pioneer Sunil Mittal’s Bharti Airtel, tumbled.

Mittal, who founded his Singtel backed company 21 years ago, has the most to lose; one in four Indians with a mobile phone is an Airtel customer. To fight off the fearsome competitor, Mittal bought 4G spectrum from struggling rivals for $1.2 billion and topped it up by buying more at a recent government auction.

Reliance chairman