India's Reliance Industries Ltd is holding internal talks about listing its telecoms unit Jio by late 2018 or early 2019, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, citing people it did not identify. A Reliance spokesman said the article was "speculative", and said the company did not comment on media speculation and rumours as a matter of policy. Jio has upended India's wireless market with free services initially and later through disruptive pricing since it began operations in September last year.
It has added customers faster than rivals and triggered a price war in the highly competitive market. Reliance, controlled by India's richest man Mukesh Ambani, has pumped more than $30 billion into Jio. Jio, the fourth-biggest player in the sector with 146 million customers as of end-October, reported a loss of 2.71 billion rupees ($42.1 million) for its fiscal second quarter to end-September.