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On 21 February, Mukesh Ambani launched Jio Prime service for the 100 million existing subscribers. All the current Reliance Jio members and the people who would enroll between 1 and 31 March 2017 would be eligible to get the benefits of Jio Prime Membership. For the first time, the prices for the plans were out with memberships starting from as low as Rs 99 for the first year for existing members who had to pay a flat fee of Rs 303 per month to avail the benefits of the Happy New Year Offer.
With the new plans out, Airtel and Vodafone introduced new plans to retain customers.
Move to March of 2017 and Idea and Vodafone joined hands in a $23 billion deal to stay afloat. The telecom giants would spend about Rs 13,400 crore to integrate their services.
With 72 million paid customers, Reliance Jio decided to extend its Jio Prime offer until 15 April. Along with the extension of the Jio Prime membership offer to 15 April, Ambani also announced a 'Jio Summer Surprise Offer'. This would entitle a Jio Prime subscriber to three months of complimentary services after their first recharge.
Soon enough telecom regulator TRAI recommended Jio to stop its Jio Summer Surprise offer. With that on hold Reliance then put up its Jio Dhan Dhana Dhan offer.
Things were looking up for Jio moving forward with a TRAI report pointing out that the telco had the fastest 4G download speeds in March 2017. Average download speed on Reliance Jio network was 16.48 megabit per second (Mbps) in March against 8.33 Mbps on Idea Cellular's and 7.66 Mbps on Bharti Airtel's network, the monthly report by Trai showed.
As of April 2017, Jio reached a paid subscriber base of 108.9 million users. Reliance Industries revealed plans to spend a further $2.8 bn on its Jio telecom business in the current quarter, taking its investment in the venture to more than $30 bn.
More recently in June, a survey by London-based wireless coverage mapping company OpenSignal revealed that the Jio launch alone attracted 100 million subscribers in the first six months. The move was enough for India to reach the 15th spot in 4G availability worldwide, which is a big deal. Open Signal report stated, “The Jio-inspired 4G revolution in India has sent that country rocketing up our availability charts.” hinting how Jio’s widespread availability and affordable pricing has made adoption easier.
In the recent highlights released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) in July, its latest telecom subscription report for the month of May, Reliance Jio turned out be the fastest growing service provider, showing a growth rate of 4.25 percent. Reliance Jio came out on top with a massive 117.34 million with Bharti Airtel at 53.30 million subscribers and Vodafone at 40.43 million subscribers in second and third place respectively.
The July Reliance Industries Limited AGM, saw the announcement of Jio's latest wonder, the JioPhone. The much-rumoured, much talked about, and much-awaited JioPhone "effectively costs Rs zero" as buyers will be able to get the device for a one-time refundable security deposit of Rs 1,500. It is Jio's most affordable, yet practical offering yet, bringing 4G to the masses at the lowest cost possible.
On 24 August 2017, pre-bookings for the JioPhone began. Two days later, the Jio.com website hinted that millions of JioPhones had been booked, with some claiming the number to be around 6 million. Pre-booking were halted for the Linux-powered 4G feature phone.
While it may have been a bumpy ride for Jio and the other telecom operators, it seems that in the end, it was the consumer that benefitted the most out of Jio's disruptive pricing. Like it or hate it, Jio is indeed here to stay and seems to have made plenty of headway in just a single year of its existence.
