If you’ve not yet heard of something sounding like “Jio” in the last couple of days, you’re probably not in India! Mukesh Ambani is all set to digitise India in the simplest way possible and with Reliance Jio in the market; other telecom companies are getting jitters already.
1. Why, how and when!
Okay, so, you’re still on the verge of using Pokemon Go and Snapchat. So why the hell is Jio more popular than Pokemon Go in India? Let’s see.
Released just a few days back, on September 1, Reliance Jio will be functioning fully from September 5, 2016. Free Internet, free voice calling, free roaming, special plans for students and corporate, and loads more similar features of Reliance Jio 4G are the talk of the nation these days.
P.S. As a part of ‘Welcome Jio Plan’, their customers can enjoy everything for free as a ‘trial’ till December 31, 2016.
2. How to get this?
It should be pretty easy to get this free trial ‘seva’, right? But mind you, you probably have to wait in a long queue to get your free Reliance Jio 4G SIM. All you need to do is to fill up the required KYC form and submit at any Reliance Digital or Xpress outlets to get the most awaited SIM of this year.
All in all, you can even get access to Jio Applications like Jio on Demand, Jio Beats, My Jio. (Um, are they worth trying? Don’t know, just get it and use it!)
3. The Real Deal
Now, how many Indians are the constant users of Internet? Many of us are still out on the usage of 4G smartphones. In India only 34.8% population uses Internet, so what about the rest? But according to Economic Times Report, Internet users will double by 2020, leaving behind the USA.
This surely means that telecom industries will have tough yet large market penetration in the near future for Internet.
Is it really possible that Reliance Jio’s plan of 4G/ LTE with a cheap price of almost Rs50 for 1 GB will work? Future holds the answer! But with the ‘free’ seva, small telecoms like Aircel, Telenor, Tata and RCom will have meager portions or even may exit from the telecom industries.
As per the Deutsche Bank report, these weak players still holds 25% of the market revenue and 40% volume share. Such telecom companies might find it hard to replicate the cheap plans of Reliance Jio and hence, they might have to struggle to survive.
With big fishes like Bharti Airtel Ltd, Vodafone Essar, Idea Cellular Ltd, the biggest challenge would be to reduce the data cost up to 25-35% and even retain the consistency of quality services.
This would certainly let Indians enjoy unlimited voice calls and Internet usage for some time, but the customers would only stick to those who will provide core services consistently with marginal rates and better quality. Free ones do not always win.
4. Something more
The plan of Reliance Jio 4G was released on September 1, 2016, and it definitely looks promising. They have 10 plans ranging between Rs 19 to Rs 4,999 for every type of user. In every plan, local and STD voice calls will be free while 4G LTE data usage will be unlimited at night (2 am to 5 am) in every plan.
(Guess everybody would be eager to watch YouTube and Netflix at these wee hours)
As per the words of Mukesh ‘bhai’ Ambani, “Jio’s mission is to meet this exploding need, to go from data shortage to data abundance.”
Still strangled whether ‘to opt or not’ for the Reliance Jio 4G? Just get it (use it for free), as you’ll have almost 4 months to decide whether to make it your primary network! Till then, enjoy the “cheap rates” battle among the telecom companies in India.
