JIO's approach of launching only 10 plans contradicts traditional wisdom of telcos of granular targeting with plans such as rate-cutter-packs that provide for an upfront fee, concessional rates for STD / SMS / data etc.). This will 100% backfire or maybe Akash Ambani has purposely
designed to see what the enemy camp led by Airtel will do.
JIO has also announced a daily pack of Rs19 (we gather this includes Rs0.3GB and unlimited voice) for occasional users, which translates into Rs570 monthly ARPU, making it another example of targeting high spenders. Airtel currently has Rs11 daily pack that offers 35MB data.
Jio is a major innovation, though expensive, to crowd-source network fine-tuning and glitch removal, and whenever JIO finally launches, its network should be more than ready for serious loads. We understand that in the trial phase, JIO has accumulated almost 5m
subscribers, and that very high usage is reported in low
spending circles such as UP-E and Bihar., with some users reaching monthly equivalent of 45GB and more. However, this does not look dependable, as
there seems a wide disparity between usage and propensity to pay.
