As the free trial of Jio’s free services under the Happy New Year Offer is ending, the market is rife with speculations and estimates about the adoption rate of Jio 4G services when it gets transforms into a pay-to-use service.
According to Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Research Survey conducted on 1,000 Jio users across India, Reliance Jio will become a huge hit in the market. The incumbent telecom operators must take the insights generated by this survey into consideration while designing strategies to counter Reliance Jio.
Here are some of the key insights revealed by the survey:
Contents
1. Almost 2/3rd of The Jio Users Use It As Their Primary SIM
65% of the respondents use Jio as their primary SIM while 25% of them use it as the secondary SIM. The rest use it with their dongles in various configurations.
2. A Majority Of The Respondents Agree That Jio Is Faster Than The Others
While there are many (35%) who still experience inconsistency with Jio, 57% of the respondents agree that it is much faster than the others, 3% find it to be inferior to others, while only 5% find no speed difference between Jio and other networks.
3. Voice Calling Is Getting Better & Is Superior To Others
47% agree that they had faced difficulties while making calls from their Jio connection, while 34% do not find much problems with VoLTE voice calling. Now only 1 in 5 respondents (19%) find it very difficult to make voice calls to other networks.
56% Jio users believe that Jio’s voice quality is clearer, while the rest find it no different from the others.
4. 83% Agree That Jio’s Coverage Is Either At Par Or Better Than The Others
Jio users are highly satisfied with the network coverage as 41% of them find it to be better than the others, and 42% believe that it is at par with the other operators.
5. Free Services Is The Biggest Attraction of Jio
It is not the faster data speeds, but its free services that is the biggest attraction (49%) of Jio.
70% Jio users have shared their number with the majority of their contacts and 22% of them have shared it only with their friends and family. A majority of Jio users can also recall their mobile number.
7. About 96% Will Continue To Use Jio; Rs. 303 Still The Most Favourite Jio Prime Plan
90% of Jio users are aware about the Jio Prime plan and 96% of them plan to continue their Jio connection post 31st March.
Talking about the tariff plans under Jio Prime, Rs. 303 plan is preferred by 70% of them, followed By Rs. 499 (13%), and Rs. 149 (8%) respectively.
These findings might come as a surprise to many telecom industry experts who were not expecting such a high adoption rate for Jio services from 1st April. But there are still many factors to consider before calling it a win for Reliance Jio.
While many Jio users will opt for Jio Prime by paying a nominal amount of Rs. 99 for a year, I am not sure how many of them will actually stick to Rs. 303 or higher plans for the whole year. Many might migrate to Rs. 149 Jio Prime plan offering 2 GB/28 days along with unlimited calling after a few months or as they come to know about it.
Kindly share your Jio experience and the tariff plan that you are planning to opt for with us through the comments. I will first try Rs. 149 plan for a month while using Jio as my secondary number, and then decide whether I need to shift to it, or continue with my existing primary connection from a leading telco.