Asia focused research insights & advisory, Asia Advisors

Vinay Patel

Asia focused research insights & advisory

Asia Advisors

Asia Advisors is an independent financial advisory and research firm working closely with corporates and institutions to provide consulting solutions & research insights. We provide advisory services including capital solutions, business strategy and investment insights.
Firm is headed by Vinay Patel who has close to two decades of experience in research and business development at large, international investment banks such as HSBC and ICICI Securities. Led research efforts in areas of Macroeconomics, Asset Allocation & Investment Strategy for close to a decade in global & domestic research teams. As a business head in Singapore, advised top global investment management firms & Portfolio managers in Asia for India related investments.
Vinay was recently joined by Swapnil Manish, an investment banker and ex-ecommerce entrepreneur with more than 12 years of experience. Swapnil was the TMT banker at BNP Paribas and was part of several large M&A and ECM transactions (Bharti-Zain, Bharti Infratel IPO, Schneider-Zicom among several others). He's also had a stint as an ecommerce entrepreneur having launched & led Mumbai's first online grocery player.

Thematic (Sector/Industry)

India Telecom services / Thematic (Sector/Industry)

<ul><li>Reliance Jio was commercially launched on 1<sup>st</sup> September and expectedly offered enticing plans with free voice calls for lifetime and high-volume data available at low tariff</li><li>RIL acquired 4G spectrum at the cheapest rates vis-à-vis competition and deserves credit for being an early adopter of 4G-LTE technology. It also got slightly fortunate with auction timing, regulatory changes, and evolution of VoLTE technology &amp; device ecosystem</li><li>Jio plans are optically “attractive” and suitable for high-volume data users; its stated ambition is to acquire 100 mn subscribers in the short-term and grow the per capita data consumption over the medium to long-term by leveraging its native app ecosystem</li><li>Expansion of market to benefit incumbents like Airtel, Vodafone and Idea; the mobile data market estimated to grow at a CAGR of 21% over the next 10 years from INR 264 bn in FY15 to INR 2,133 bn by FY26</li><li>We don’t expect market leaders like Bharti and Vodafone to lose much market share to Jio. The fringe players (Sistema, Tata) will clearly be the biggest losers.</li><li>Price wars likely to continue and players like Idea would be constrained to preserve capital; hence upcoming 4G auctions likely to see lukewarm response</li><li>In the next 3-5 years, Jio would displace Idea from the Top 3 position in the Indian telco pecking order</li></ul>

Reliance Jio was commercially launched on 1st September and expectedly offered enticing plans with free voice calls for lifetime and high-volume data available at low tariffRIL acquired 4G spectrum at the cheapest rates vis-à-vis competition and deserves credit for being an early adopter of 4G-LTE technology. It also got slightly fortunate with auction timing, regulatory changes, and evolution of VoLTE technology &amp; device ecosystemJio plans are optically “attractive” and suitable for high-volume data users; its stated ambition is to acquire 100 mn subscribers in the short-term and grow the per capita data consumption over the medium to long-term by leveraging its native app ecosystemExpansion of market to benefit incumbents like Airtel, Vodafone and Idea; the mobile data market estimated to grow at a CAGR of 21% over the next 10 years from INR 264 bn in FY15 to INR 2,133 bn by FY26We don’t expect market leaders like Bharti and Vodafone to lose much market share to Jio. The fringe players (Sistema, Tata) will clearly be the biggest losers.Price wars likely to continue and players like Idea would be constrained to preserve capital; hence upcoming 4G auctions likely to see lukewarm responseIn the next 3-5 years, Jio would displace Idea from the Top 3 position in the Indian telco pecking order

Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) (TTLS IN)

Reliance Jio Launch: Well Begun Is Half Done. Could Displace Idea from #3 Spot