Reliance Jio could lose Rs 15,000 crore this financial year: Bernstein

Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd., India’s most profitable wireless carrier, could lose as much as Rs 150 billion ($2.1 billion) this fiscal year when costs such as handset subsidies are included, according to analysts at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. That would be a bigger deficit than those of its larger Indian rivals Bharti Airtel Ltd. and Vodafone Idea Ltd., even though the company known as Jio will probably overcome them over the next 12 months in terms of service revenue and subscribers, analysts Chris Lane and Samuel Chen wrote in a note to clients dated February 26. The fiscal year of Jio’s parent, Reliance Industries, ends March 31.

Jio – part of a group controlled by Asia’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani – introduced a free-for-life call service into one of the world’s most crowded mobile markets, triggering a price war.