In just two years, his network has grown to more than 250 million subscribers, more than AT&T Inc. Most of Ambani’s rivals - including his own brother - were quickly driven into irrelevance. Millions of impoverished Indians were yanked into the digital age almost overnight. He offered free voice calls and bargain-basement digital connectivity through inexpensive feature phones across India, appealing to those fazed by smartphones. In a seismic shake-up of the telecom industry, Ambani invested $35 billion to launch the country’s most advanced wireless network two years ago. “A lot of our growth is coming from markets in Asia our top growth countries were India, Indonesia and the Philippines,” David Wehner, chief financial officer, said on the most recent earnings call.įacebook’s recent momentum in India stems from its alliance with Mukesh Ambani, chief of the conglomerate Reliance Industries.
WhatsApp will become more crucial to Facebook’s bottom line as the social network matures. The messaging service is free to use, but Facebook charges businesses to communicate on the platform and is expected to introduce advertising. The country is already WhatsApp’s biggest market, with more than 200 million users - so important that Chris Daniels has visited twice since becoming CEO in May. Yet India is evolving into perhaps its most promising opportunity. The scandals have Facebook’s stock on pace for its worst annual performance since 2012, the year it made its public debut.
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