Bharti Airtel, Idea fall up to 7% on launch of Reliance Jio Phone; RIL up 2%

Shares of telecom services provider Idea Cellular (down 7% to Rs 88.40) and Bharti Airtel (down 4% at Rs 404) have dipped up to 6% on BSE in intra-day trade after Reliance Jio, a telecom subsidiary of Reliance Industries (RIL), launched a feature phone. At 12:04 pm; RIL was up 2% at Rs 1,560, after hitting an over nine-year high of Rs 1,588, up 4%, in early morning trade.

On the Jio Phone, voice will always be free and will give them access to unlimited data on the Jio Phone, said Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director, RIL.

“Reliance Jio phone will be available for Rs 0 for all Indians. To protect against misuse of the free Jio phone offer we plan to collect a fully refundable, one-time, security deposit of Rs 1,500 with every Jio phone,” he added.

Meanwhile, in past one-month, Bharti Airtel (up 14%) and Idea Cellular (up 19%) had outperformed the RIL (up 8.5%). By comparison, the S&P BSE Sensex had gained 1.9% till Thursday, July 20, 2017.