Reliance Jio's Happy New Year Offer ends March 31 and the company has already announced "Jio Prime", which allows Jio subscribers to retain their existing offer by paying a one-time fee of Rs 99. Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani had announced that Jio Prime subscription will end on March 31 and now a TeleAnalysis reports that the company might extend that deadline until next month.
The reason behind extending the deadline seems to be lukewarm response for Jio Prime in the initial phase. Reliance Jio recently confirmed that it has over 100 million subscribers and only 22-27 million users have reportedly enrolled for Jio Prime. Reliance Jio has reportedly achieved 50 percent of its target Prime users, but there is no word on the company's official target. "It may get another month's extension, may be till April 30 but nothing has been finalised yet," a source at the company said.
With Jio Prime, the existing subscribers can retain unlimited data with FUP of 1GB per day until March 31, 2018 with a monthly recharge of Rs 303. While the service seems lucrative, it has been facing pressure from other telecom service providers. The telecom industry has been in a phase of consolidation with Vodafone merging its services with Idea Cellular, while Reliance Communications and Aircel are set to follow suit with a planned merger.
In order to appease their existing subscribers, Airtel, Vodafone, Idea and others have been offering free data. All telecom service providers have now made outgoing calls free across their plans along with free incoming on roaming. Reliance Jio, on the other hand, has announced 'buy one get one free recharge' offer with extra 5GB free data worth Rs 201 to users buying the new Rs 303 monthly plan. Reliance Jio is also offering cashback for those doing monthly recharges with the JioMoney app, making Jio Prime almost free.
There is no clarity yet on whether Reliance Jio plans to extend the deadline on Prime subscription, but the possibility of such an extension can't be ruled out.