Mukesh Ambani unveils new Reliance Jio data plans, including Prime membership

New Delhi: Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd chairman Mukesh Ambani on Tuesday stepped on the gas in the Indian telecom sector by introducing a series of sweeteners to attract more subscribers to Jio.

Ambani, who claimed that Jio has crossed the 100 million customer mark, said that Jio’s Happy New Year offer ends on 31 March, and starting 1 April, Jio will start its tariff plans where voice calls and roaming will be free. “There will be no black out days or any hidden charges,” Ambani said.

There is anxiety in the market due to various tariff plans being launched by different operators.

“Jio is instituting a comprehensive process to monitor all tariff plans by all operators on a regular basis. We will not only match them but will provide 20% more data in each of these plans,” Ambani said. “In addition to these plans, we will of course have Jio’s own tariff plans, which are by far the best. Better value for the best price,” he added.

For its first 100 million customers, Jio plans to offer a Jio prime membership programme, which intends to offer several benefits to the members with a cost component attached to them. Some of the benefits in the programme include membership for customers at Rs99.

“This will have unlimited benefits that they have got used to for another 12 months,” Ambani said. “We will offer other extremely high-value offers. As they say in Mumbai—unlimited maza continue hoyenga,” he said.

Ambani said that before Jio, India was 150th in the world in broadband penetration. But last month alone, Jio users consumed data of more than 100 crore GB.

“Today India is the number one country in the world for mobile data usage. Jio users consume as much mobile data as much as the US and nearly 50% of all of China. A significant portion of this data is consumed by video—5.5 crore hours of video daily—making Jio one of the largest video networks globally,” he said.

Ambani said that Jio has more than double 4G base stations compared to all other Indian operators put together.

“We are making our network better, faster, stronger with each passing day,” he said. “We will more than double data capacity. By the end of 2017, Jio network will be present across India—cover 99% of our country’s population,” he said.

“I hope more Jio customers will opt for MNP and make Jio their permanent home. Jio is trained to be a customer obsessed organisation,” he added.

Reliance Industries shares closed up 1.36% at Rs1088.25 at BSE.

Jio Prime membership highlights:

The prime enrolment will be open from 1 March to 31 March. The enrolment can be done using the MyJio app, Jio website or at any Reliance Digital retail store. Here is what Jio Prime members will be entitled to:

• Unlimited benefits during the free offer period for the last six months will be available for another 12 months till 31 March 2018 at an introductory price of Rs303 per month.

• Jio media services (Jio Music, TV, Chat etc) will be complementary.

• Jio will put together a line of deals and offers only for prime members.