The war between Indian telecom operators continues as Reliance Jio updated its plans and tariffs on Tuesday. The new plans will reportedly offer customers more data for longer validity periods for the same prices.
The launch of Reliance Jio under a year ago was a turning point for the Indian telecom industry. The time since then has ushered in numerous innovations and has pushed down prices drastically. Reliance Jio and incumbent telecom providers are now essentially locked in a price war, and each keeps trying to come out on top.
Reliance Jio has been hitting the industry hard, with Airtel in particular threatened by its rapid rise. Reliance managed to gain 100 million subscribers in record time and even reported higher ARPU than their rivals. Since then, Airtel has hit back in numerous ways, the latest of which is to launch their own rival VoLTE services.
Airtel’s tactics have worked to an extent. Ever since the end of the free introductory offer, Jio’s growth has slowed down relatively. In what is surely a bid to spur renewed growth, Reliance Jio has now packed even more value into their already rock bottom price plans. The following changes will be made under the new tariffs:-
- Rs 309 Per Month – The existing Rs 309 plan will offer the same free calling, SMS as before, along with 1 GB of data per day. However, now the plan validity has increased to 56 days, which is double the previous validity period of 28 days.
- Rs 509 Per Month – Similarly, this plan will continue to offer 2 GB of data per day with unlimited voice and SMS, along with the extended validity of 56 days.
- Rs 349 Per Month – This new plan will offer 20 GB data for a 56 day period divided into two 28 day halves.
- Rs 399 Per Month – This new plan is valid for 84 days and offers 1 GB of data per day along with free calling and SMS.
- Rs 999 Per Month – This plan provides 90 GB of data with free calling and SMS. However, validity has now been increased from 60 days to 90 days.
There are a few other plans too, for Rs 1999, 4999 and 9999, which have also drastically increased the data and validity period on offer. Essentially, many of these plans are now reducing the cost to the consumer by as much as 50%! Once again Reliance Jio has blindsided the industry by bringing down their already rock bottom prices even lower. Such pricing is sure to attract even more customers and give the likes of Airtel, Vodafone and Idea an even bigger headache. It has now become even more vital for these companies to make the switch to VoLTE so that they can be competitive with Reliance Jio price-wise.
