Reliance Jio Undercuts Airtel Offerings With New Postpaid Family Plans
The Jio Plus family postpaid plans start at Rs 399 per month while those of Airtel start at Rs 999 per month.
Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. has unveiled new postpaid plans starting at Rs 399 per month for a family of four users, severely undercutting rival Bharti Airtel Ltd.
The Jio Plus family postpaid plans allows a family of four to try the services free of cost for a month. The Rs 399 per month plan provides 75 GB data at 5G speeds with unlimited calling and messaging. The Rs 699 per month offers 100 GB data at 5G speeds with unlimited calling and messaging, as well as subscriptions to Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. A single bill is generated for the entire family.
In comparison, Airtel’s family postpaid plans start at Rs 999 per month with 100 GB rollover data and unlimited calling, as well as 100 SMSes and a subscription for Amazon Prime Video.
Here’s a look at the postpaid plans offered by Airtel and Reliance Jio:
“The idea behind launching Jio Plus is to offer exciting new benefits and experiences to the discerning postpaid users,” Akash Ambani, chairman of Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd., said in a statement released on Tuesday. “After having serviced over 430 million customers, that includes millions of satisfied postpaid users, there cannot be a more opportune time to welcome millions of new postpaid customers.”
Postpaid Wars
Gaining postpaid subscribers is crucial for both Airtel and Reliance Jio in their endeavour to increase their average revenue per user, or ARPU, from Rs 193 and Rs 178.2, respectively. Only prepaid users won’t cut it.
Due to a healthier subscriber mix, Airtel stands to gain more than Reliance Jio from the churn at Vodafone Idea Ltd., according to Jefferies.
“Bharti Airtel’s 4.4 million net subscriber adds [in the December quarter] surprised positively, driven by higher gross adds and lower churn, while Jio’s net subscriber adds of 5.3 million and Vi’s 6 million subscriber loss disappointed,” Jefferies' analysts Akshat Agarwal and Ankur Pant wrote in a Feb. 20 note.
Among the three private operators, Jio continues to have the least postpaid users. The Jio Plus plans are an attempt to change the order.
“Many postpaid users want to be convinced about the service experience and the ease of switching to a new service provider. The free trial with Jio Plus plans addresses these issues,” Ambani said in the statement. “We have tried to design a gold standard service experience and we hope that every postpaid user in India will make full use of it.”