Jio unleashes post-paid tariff war, targets high paying Airtel, Vi users

Reliance Jio Infocomm (Jio) has rolled out post paid tariff plans to woo the high revenue customers who till now were on Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea (VIL)’s postpaid plan. The Mukesh Ambani-led telco has come up with a gamut of offerings which includes family packs and access to OTT platforms, a first from Jio which so far had mostly focussed on prepaid customers.

“There can’t be a more opportune time to introduce JioPostpaid Plus. After having earned the trust of close to 400 million satisfied customers in the prepaid smartphone category, we want to extend our customer obsession to the postpaid category,” said Akash Ambani, Director, Jio.

Up till now, Jio, which had just one postpaid plan at Rs 199, concentrated largely on the prepaid customers, who form the main segment of telecom subscribers in India. The new plans are for Rs 399, Rs 599, Rs 799, Rs 999 and Rs 1499.

The post paid turf is set to be the next battle ground since these customers bring in the high average revenue per user (ARPU) – a key metric – and therefore will be Jio’s target. Interestingly, the new postpaid tariffs come in a time when VIL has been talking of hikes in prices as well.

Jio which has about 400 customers has an ARPU of Rs 140 compared to Vodafone Idea’s Rs 114 and Airtel’s Rs 157. It is also aiming to reach a base of 500 million subscribers and for that, postpaid tariffs will get the telco an expanded target base.

Experts said bulk of India’s high-end postpaid users — who form about 4-5% of the mobile subscriber base and generate around 25% of mobility service revenues — have remained with Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea, largely due to an endemic lethargy to move, the comfort of regular customer service and better roaming deals. The Free Press Newspaper