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Facebook buying a 9.99% stake in the Reliance Jio platforms gives both companies the opportunity to break into India’s Internet domain. Reliance Retail will use WhatsApp to attract more customers to JioMart, its grocery delivery platform to start with, but there are more things that this association can facilitate.
Mobile games
Mobile gaming in India has been at a high level since Reliance Jio’s entry into the telecom space that brought cheap data and easier access to the Internet. This also allowed developers to reach more players. In fact, many developers feel that Jio is critical to changing the mobile gaming landscape in the country.
Facebook gamerooms were popular with developers until a few years ago. The platform had a lot of games, but it couldn’t be very popular. Add the recent Facebook gaming app to this. Facebook Gaming is similar to Microsoft’s Twitch and Google’s YouTube Gaming, a streaming platform. One that could benefit from Jio by bringing low-latency gaming on its fiber network.
Also read: Facebook-Reliance Agreement: A Quick Look at the Numbers
If Jio can convince players to be on his network, he can use them to increase Facebook Gaming content. Microsoft is doing this through the Xbox gaming console and Google through the Stadia gaming platform.
Virtual reality (VR)
Reliance Jio is one of the few Indian bigwigs that has shown an interest in consumer virtual reality. Facebook owns Oculus, which is one of the first companies to make virtual reality headsets for consumers.
Jio already combines its mixed reality platform, virtual reality and augmented reality (AR) experiences with its broadband service. Post this association, you could group Oculus together with this to improve the value proposition.
Video broadcast live
Both Reliance Jio and Facebook have their own video streaming platforms. Jio already has a user base in India for JioMovies (since it’s free for Jio subscribers) and Facebook has been driving the Facebook Watch platform here. Both Facebook Watch and JioMovies can improve what the other has to offer.
Facebook Watch has a large amount of user-generated content that Jio doesn’t have access to and Jio already has contacts to place movies on the platform.
According to a report by the Federation of International Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and EY, India’s video streaming market is expected to increase to 488 million viewers by 2022 from 378 million in 2019. Facebook and Jio could use your partnership to capitalize on this growth.
Also Read: Facebook-Jio Agreement: Read What Mark Zuckerberg Has To Say
Payments
Both companies have shown interest in participating in the payment space. While Jio does have JioMoney, Facebook allows people to make payments through Messenger in the US. USA And WhatsApp is now a UPI based payment app in India. Facebook also has a third digital payment effort underway: the Libra cryptocurrency service.
While Jio may not get involved in the cryptocurrency scene anytime soon, one may wonder if he will ever be part of the Libra Association in the future.
Hemanth Kumar, a former Unocoin CIO and co-founder of the blockchain-based Mints platform, told Mint that the deal could be a “further step in experiencing large-scale crypto-based payments”, and India could be a “field fantastic testing “for that.
Speaking to Mint, Darshan Bathija, CEO of the Bank of Hodlers, said building interoperability between Libra and UPI is “a way for Facebook to bring the service here.”
“The massive and unattended distribution that Jio brings with the next billion users, along with WhatsApp’s existing penetration in India, will make Libra the winner of payments for the Indian subcontinent, by far,” added Bathija.
However…
Facebook’s “infamous” Free Basics platform was shut down by the Indian Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (Trai) due to network neutrality concerns. Under Free Basics, Facebook wanted to provide free access to certain services to a certain segment of Internet users. At the time, Facebook had launched the service through a link to Anil Ambani’s Reliance Communications. Could Facebook use Jio to do something similar again?
However, this may be more conjecture than reality.
Apar Gupta, executive director of the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) privacy advocacy group, said “the regulatory framework is pretty clear on this front, making reviving something like Free Basics unlikely.”
At this time, telecommunication companies like Jio can provide free access to their streaming apps, etc., but they cannot give up on the use of user data for that purpose. Jio may allow free access to Facebook applications, but may not provide free access for data use.
