Jio secures $2.2 billion from the Swedish Export Credit Agency (EKN) for the purchase of 5G equipment

7 Aug 2023 , 11:52 AM

In order to purchase Ericsson equipment and services for the telco’s pan-Indian 5G deployment, Reliance Jio Infocomm, the telecom division of Reliance Industries (RIL), secured $2.2 billion in financing through the Swedish Export Credit Agency (EKN) in the most recent fiscal year through March. 

The Mukesh Ambani-owned company stated in its annual report for FY23 that ‘RJIL tied up its first ever Swedish Export Credit Agency (EKN) supported facilities of $2.2 billion equivalent making it the largest cover ever provided by EKN for a deal to a private corporate globally.’

‘During FY 2022-23, the Company (RIL) and its subsidiary Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (RJIL) tied up $3 billion equivalent through syndicated term loan facilities,’ the annual report continued.

Jio’s 5G services under Jio True 5G were accessible in 2300 cities and municipalities as of March 31, 2023. The telco’s website indicates that its 5G services are currently offered in 6,258 communities.

‘Jio has committed to an investment of Rs 2 lakh crore to fulfil its ambitious pan-India 5G rollout plan,’ RIL stated.

The parent company of Jio also stated that the telco is on schedule to complete the 5G rollout by December 2023 utilising a locally created 5G stack, which it also plans to export to other nations in the near future.

A total of 1120 patent applications for digital services have also been submitted by the company’s digital services division, which also comprises Jio Platforms and the telecom division.

‘There have been 1,120 patent applications filed in total worldwide. The 5G and 6G technologies, as well as Distributed Ledger Technology, are among the important topics addressed by these patents, according to RIL.

According to the company, work is being done to create applications and solutions for a variety of digital services, including the 5G stack, cloud and edge computing, devices and operating systems, blockchain, IoT, mixed reality, secure identity, and natural language processing.

As part of its aim to use a platform approach to all solutions, Jio’s focus in the longer term would be to expand OEM (original equipment manufacturer) collaborations to build new 4G/5G devices, the report noted.

According to RIL, the Jio network today transports more than 55% of the nation’s data traffic, and in FY23, 113.3 billion GB of data were consumed on the network, a 24% increase. As a result, from 19.1 GB in FY22, the average monthly data consumption on the Jio network increased to 23.1 GB per user.

As of March 31, 2023, Jio had 439.3 million subscribers, generating an average revenue per user (ARPU) of Rs 178.8, according to RIL.

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