Reliance Jio Infocomm, India’s #1 4G operator with 130 million plus customers, has increased the price of its data packages and reduced the duration of plans.
The strategy of Reliance Jio is to enhance its ARPU from its growing data subscriber base. At the same time, Jio does not want to lose its subscribers to Airtel or Vodafone-Idea Cellular. Both Airtel and Idea-Vodafone are offering compelling data packages.
Reliance Jio reported revenue of Rs 6,147 crore, EBITDA of Rs 1,443 crore with EBITDA margin of 23.4 percent in the September quarter of 2017.
The main challenge for Reliance Jio Infocomm is to increase the monthly ARPU of its 4G subscribers. Jio has reported a monthly ARPU of Rs 156.4 from its 130 million subscribers. The company could not attract data customers to consume more data despite offering free voice and SMS services.
Pinakin Parekh, JP Morgan’s analyst, earlier said the launch of the JioPhone potentially opens up a large new market though at lower ARPU for Jio. Jio believes that the cost effective phone would allow them to address a market of 500 million potential subscribers with the launch of Rs 153 per month plan offering free voice and unlimited data.
Data price goes up
Reliance Jio, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries (RIL) promoted by Mukesh Ambani, has increased the price of both pre-paid and post-paid services. The telecom company is continuing to offer free voice, SMS and national roaming services to its wireless customers. Users feel that there may be control on the use of voice services on its VoLTE network.
Reliance Jio has increased the price of the Rs 399 plan to Rs 459. Under the Rs 459 plan, consumers can use 1GB of data for 84 days.
Reliance Jio has reduced the duration of the Rs 399 plan to 70 days from the earlier 90 days. The company will offer 2GB data per day for 46 days against the earlier 56 days for Rs 509.
Reliance Jio has also reduced the data usage of the Rs 999 plan to 60 GB from the earlier 90GB for 90 days.
Reliance Jio has slashed the data consumption to 125 GB from 155 GB under the Rs 1,999 plan for its customers.
Reliance Jio will now offer 150 MB of data against the earlier 200 MB under the Rs 19 per day package.
