SOME businesspeople are guided by experts, spreadsheets and crunchy questions. What is your three-year target for market share? Will a project deliver a reasonable return on the capital invested? A few hurl all the forecasts and reports into the bin and surrender to their own hunger to make a mark.

有些商人总是被专家、财务报表和小问题所左右。三年市场份额目标是多少？这个项目是否能够提供合理投资回报？有一些人则抛弃了所有的预测和报告，仅仅依靠他们自己对于成功的直觉。

One such figure is Mukesh Ambani, India’s richest man. In September 2016 he placed one of the biggest business bets in the world by launching Jio, a mobile-telecoms network that allows India’s masses to access data on an unprecedented scale. In the past six months it has won 100m customers. Only one other firm on the planet has such an acquisition rate—Facebook. From Kolkata’s slums to the banks of the Ganges, millions of Indians are using social media and streaming videos for the very first time.

其中一个例子就是印度首富穆克什·安巴尼（Mukesh Ambani）。2016年9月，穆克什·安巴尼投入全世界最大规模之一的资金量，创办了通讯公司Jio，向民众提供网络数据服务，规模之大史无前例。在过去半年内，Jio就拥有了一亿用户。此前，世界上只有一家公司能拥有如此之高的用户获得率，那就是Facebook。从加尔各答的贫民窟到恒河沿岸，数以千百万计的印度民众第一次使用上了社交媒体和流媒体视频。

To achieve this, Mr Ambani has spent an incredible $25bn on Jio, without making a rupee of profit, terrifying competitors and many investors. The motivation for his gamble probably lies with his turbulent family history. Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), Mr Ambani’s company, was set up by his father, Dhirubhai, in 1957. Born in humble circumstances, Dhirubhai was famous for three things: running rings around officials; creating a fortune for himself and RIL’s army of small shareholders; and his appetite for giant industrial projects. RIL jumped from textiles into oil refining and petrochemicals. Its refinery in Gujarat is one of the world’s largest. It opened in 2000, two years before Dhirubhai died.

为了实现这一目标，穆克什·安巴尼在Jio投下了惊人的250亿美元，一分钱不赚，让众多竞争对手和投资者大惊失色。穆克什·安巴尼这一豪赌之举背后的也许就在于他那传奇的家族史。1957年，穆克什·安巴尼的父亲迪鲁巴伊·安巴尼（Dhirubhai Ambani）创办了信实工业公司（Reliance Industries Limited, RIL）。出身卑微的迪鲁巴伊以三件事闻名：与政府官员交情甚笃，为他自己和RIL的大批小股东谋取财富，以及他承接大型工业项目的能力。此后，RIL逐渐从纺织业进入石油和化工领域。2000年，也就是迪鲁巴伊去世的两年前，RIL在印度古吉拉特邦建立了炼油厂，这也是世界上规模最大的炼油厂之一。

Mukesh Ambani and his brother, Anil, took the reins in 2002 and split from each other in 2005, leaving Mukesh in full control of RIL. Since then his record has been patchy. RIL’s shares have lagged India’s stockmarket over the past decade and its return on capital has sagged, halving from 12% to 6%.

穆克什·安巴尼和他的弟弟安尼尔·安巴尼（Anil Ambani）在2002年接班，并在2005年分家后，全权掌管RIL。从那以后情况就不尽如人意，过去十年里，RIL的股价一直在印度股票市场内处于低位，投资回报率也从12%下降到了6%。

Emulating his father, Mr Ambani has rolled the dice on several huge projects. He has invested huge sums to modernise the petrochemicals and refining business. This decision has been a success—it is an excellent operation that makes a return of about 12%. But Mr Ambani’s other investment calls have flopped. In 2010-15 RIL spent $8bn on shale fields in America. Now that oil prices are lower they lose money. The group invested about $10bn in energy fields off India’s east coast; they have produced less gas than hoped for and are worth little. And RIL has spent around $2bn on a retail business that produces only small profits. All told, RIL’s refining and petrochemicals unit accounts for two-fifths of its capital employed but over 100% of operating profits. The other businesses, developed mainly after Mr Ambani took sole charge, swallow a majority of resources but don’t make money.

像他的父亲一样，穆克什也投资了几个巨大的项目。他投入巨资，实现石化和炼油产业现代化，这是个成功的决定，他得到了12%的投资回报。但是，穆克什的其它投资却不怎么顺利。2010年——2015年度，RIL在美国的页岩田投资80亿美元，可是，现在油价降低，连连亏本。RIL还在印度东海岸投入约100亿美元开发天然气，产量低于预期，利润不多。之后，该集团又在利润微薄的零售业投资了约20亿美元。总而言之，RIL的炼油和石化业务仅占其总投资的五分之二，却提供了几乎全部的营业利润。由穆克什单独负责开展的其他业务占用了大量的资源，却不赚钱。

A lesser man might have lost his nerve, but Mr Ambani has pursued another colossal bet in the form of Jio. He knows telecoms: in 2002 he oversaw the family’s first attempt to build a big mobile-phone business (his brother now owns the struggling operation). The latest effort has been a decade in the making. Step by step, RIL acquired spectrum, worked with handset suppliers and built a “fourth-generation” network. Jio’s offer of free services caused a sensation. A savage price war has ensued. One rival executive reckons Jio is carrying more data than either China Mobile or AT&T, the world’s two most valuable operators.

胆小的人可能会失去了勇气，穆克什以创办Jio公司的方式投下了另一个巨大的赌注。他了解电信业务：2002年，穆克什见证了家族的第一个大型移动电话业务（他的弟弟安尼尔现在经营这个不景气的业务），然而，最近的这个尝试也是十年之前。RIL逐步收购了印度频谱，与手机供应商合作建立了“4G”网络。Jio提供的免费服务引起了轰动，随之而来的是一场野蛮的价格战。一竞争对手公司的首席执行官表示，Jio运营的数据量比世界上两大市值最高的运营商——中国移动和美国AT＆T都要多。

That underlines the potential of India’s telecoms market. Data usage is low, there are few fixed lines and most people don’t have smartphones. The incumbent firms are heavily indebted, so have limited ability to respond to a price war.

这凸显了印度电信市场的潜力。 数据使用率低，固定线路很少，大多数人没有智能手机。 现有运营商负债沉重，因此，对价格战的应对能力有限。

Jio will start charging from April 1st. Yet even assuming it keeps cranking prices up and wins a third of the market, a discounted-cash-flow analysis suggests that it would be worth only two-thirds of the sum that Mr Ambani has spent. To justify that amount Jio would at some point need to earn the same amount of profit that India’s entire telecoms industry made in 2016. In other words, there is no escaping the punishing economics of pouring cash into networks and spectrum. For every customer that Jio might eventually win, it will have invested perhaps $100. Compare that with Facebook or Alibaba, both asset-light internet firms, which have invested about $10 per user.

Jio将从4月1日开始收费。 然而，折现现金流量分析表明，即使假设价格持续上涨并占据三分之一的市场份额，Jio的价值也只相当于穆克什投资数额的三分之二。 为了达到这一数额，在某种程度上来说，Jio需要赚取的利润相当于2016年印度整个电信行业的利润。换句话说，对于电信网络和频谱的投资不会有任何经济效益。 对于Jio最终可以赢得的每一位客户来说，它将投入大约100美元。 Facebook和阿里巴巴这两家轻资产互联网公司，每家用户投资只有约10美元。

Jio’s three main mobile competitors have scrambled to respond. Bharti Airtel is buying a smaller rival to try to lower its costs. Vodafone is in talks about merging with Idea Cellular, another operator. Half a dozen or so weaker companies (including the firm now run by Mr Ambani’s brother) will probably disappear. The best hope for Jio is that in the distant future it will be one of three firms left and that a cut-throat industry will evolve into a comfy oligopoly, which is possible.

Jio的三大竞争对手纷纷做出了回应。印度巴帝电信（Bharti Airtel）正在收购一个小公司来降低成本。沃达丰（Vodafone）正在与另一运营商Idea Cellular商谈合并。大约六七家弱小公司（包括现在由穆克什的弟弟安尼尔经营的公司）可能会消失。Jio最大的希望是，在遥远的未来，它将是仅存的三家运营商之一，而通信这个重要的领域将会演变成寡头垄断，Jio就可以轻松赚钱了。

RIL’s share price has gone nowhere for years but excitement about Jio’s 100m new customers has helped it bounce over the past month. Still, the scale of the investment illustrates the risks that shareholders face at a firm that is controlled by one man. Even if Jio eventually gushes cash it is not clear if RIL will pay bigger dividends, or if Mr Ambani will instead pursue another grand project. As investors wait, however, many more of India’s 1.3bn consumers will gain—not only from low prices, but a welcome splurge on the nation’s telecom infrastructure.

RIL的股价低迷多年，Jio的一亿新用户使其股价在过去一个月里反弹。 然而，这个投资规模说明，在一个由一人控制的企业里，股东所面临的风险。 即使是Jio最终赚的盆满钵满，人们也不清楚RIL会支付更多分红，还是说穆克什将再次投资另一个大型项目。 不过，在投资者们等待RIL下一步动作的同时，受益的人会比印度的13亿消费者更多，民众不但能享受低廉的价格，还能享受到国家的电信基础设施所带来的便利。

Defiance from Reliance

信实集团的挑战

And what of Mr Ambani? Perhaps he hopes to get his money back by turning Jio into an internet firm that offers payment services and content, not just connectivity. China’s Tencent, which owns WeChat, a messaging service, has successfully diversified into games and banking. Still, no telecoms firm has managed this feat and it is hard to see how RIL’s clannish culture can become a hotbed of innovation. More likely, Mr Ambani, aged 59, just doesn’t care what all the spreadsheets point to. Sitting atop his skyscraper, overlooking teeming Mumbai, where some 5m new Jio customers are surfing the web at high speed for peanuts, he can at last say that he has changed India. When you are Dhirubhai’s son, that is probably enough.

而穆克什呢？ 也许他希望将Jio变成一家提供支付服务和内容的互联网公司，而不仅仅只提供通信业务，这样就能赚回他的投资。拥有微信（WeChat）这个聊天业务的中国腾讯成功地进入了游戏和银行领域。不过，从来没有电信企业能够完成这个壮举，RIL的家族式企业文化也很难成为创新的温床。更有可能出现的情况是这样的：59岁的穆克什·安巴尼，并不在乎那些财务报表。他在他的摩天大楼的顶层俯瞰着孟买，那里大约有500万新的Jio客户正在享受廉价而高速的网络服务，最后他可以说是他改变了印度。当你是迪鲁巴伊的儿子的时候，这样可能就足够了。

编译：曹铭津

审校：刘恬

编辑：翻吧君

英文来源：经济学人