India’s Jio introduces its first price plans

Disruptive new Indian 4G operator Reliance Jio’s free services offer will soon be coming to an end, but the operator has announced an aggressive new pricing strategy in a bid to retain as many of its new customers as possible.

Jio launched nationwide services in September last year, but made all services available for free as a promotional offer. The company subsequently extended this promotion until March 31.

The aggressive marketing strategy has helped Jio sign up new customers at a record rate – the operator recently revealed it is nearing 100 million customers. But a number of these are expected to port out once the free services period comes to an and, due in part to the current patchy nature of Jio services.

In an attempt to limit churn, Jio has introduced a new Prime offer that will take effect from April 1. Under this offer, customers will be able to pay a one-time 99 rupee ($1.48) fee for prime membership, and another 303 rupees a month for unlimited voice calls and 30GB of allocated data.

Jio’s rivals, which have already been feeling the impact of the operator’s entry into the market and been pushed into making their offers more competitive, may find themselves needing to further cut prices or increase allocations in response.

This could put even more pressure on a hotly-competitive telecoms market and accelerate the consolidation trend.