Reliance Jio’s preview offer is available on all smartphone manufacturers and includes unlimited HD voice calls, video calls, text messages, full access to Jio apps and high-speed 4G LTE internet. Last week Jio created a world record of acquiring 16 million customers in a month, but the target is still behind the forecast.
According to analysts and industry experts, Reliance could extend the Jio preview offer till March 2017 to attain its target of 100 million customers on the network. Although the company could see an attrition of nearly 40-50% post the preview offer, Reliance Jio wants to achieve the desired volumes before the subscribers switch.
A report by Motilal Oswal Financial Services, India’s leading share trading company, said, “Mass scale free welcome offer could continue until March 2017 to attract subscriber growth towards the celebrated 100 million mark with RJio’s indicative data pricing at Rs 130-140 per gigabyte (GB).”
Even if you consider a 3x-4x growth every month, the total number of subscribers would still not be close to a 100 million, and to achieve this number, the company will have to extend the preview offer and attract more subscribers.
We had recently discussed that Reliance Jio’s 4G network speeds very slowest of all other network operators, which comes as a surprise. Apart from this, Jio users have been facing high number of call drops and connectivity issues owing to poor infrastructure from the start.
Another reason why Jio preview offer might extend is the fact that because Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular failed to provide sufficient interconnection points, the service is poor and users must be compensated for the same. These three leaders had deliberately blocked Jio’s calls and Reliance wants to make up for that by extending the preview offer.
Our analysis on this situation
It looks difficult for Reliance Jio to extend the offers considering that the company is already giving out a lot to its subscribers. Jio literally disrupted the telco industry by offering services at rock-bottom prices.
Moreover, all the issues it has been facing have a little relation to other major players in the industry. Jio has also promised that the calls will remain free forever, so it is just the data they are charging for. Starting 2017, even if Jio starts charging for its internet plans, the company might not lose many customers because the plans are cheap compared to other telco majors.
Also, TRAI has given a clean chit to Jio for offering free lifetime voice calls and this could encourage Reliance Jio to extend the preview offer. However, extending the offer could lead to higher attrition in the future because of poor service and struggling data services.
In any case, you should make full use of the Jio services until 31st December and hope that Reliance extends the offer. This will also forcefully make other telcos modify their tariff plans and keep them on the leash longer.
