Reliance Jio may not be extending Happy New Year offer on back of promising Prime numbers

The march of the newest entrant into India’s booming telecom market, Reliance Jio, was dampened a few days ago when reports stated that the company was contemplating extending its Happy New Year offer in a bid to attract further takers for its Jio Prime membership, the numbers for which supposedly didn’t measure up to expectations. However, sources have now revealed that this might not be the case.

Sources within the company have said that Jio is closing in on the 50 million Prime member mark, a target that it had set for itself. This means that close to 50 percent of Jio’s 100 million or so users are now Prime members. On the back of these latest figures, the telecom operator seems content to allow its Happy New Year offer, set to expire on March 31, to end.

This may prove to be good news for the rest of the industry, which has been forced to push down prices amidst the onslaught from the Mukesh Ambani-led newbie ever since its release last year. It will be interesting to see how the industry shapes up in the months to come, as quality and network expansion again take centre stage. Adding further spice to things are the recent Vodafone-Idea merger and the case Jio registered against Airtel for its claim of being the proven fastest network in India according to the Ookla Speed Test. Jio had referred to the latter as damaging and malicious, demanding that the advertisements be taken off the air and stating that Ookla wasn’t suited to judge such an issue.

Also read: Reliance Jio receives poor response with 13 pc new customers for Prime membership

Reliance Jio took another step ahead in its effort to bring more customers onto its platform recently, unveiling a new ‘buy one get one’ offer where Prime users are given additional data benefits on a recharge of Rs 149 and above. The window starts from 1 GB and goes up to 5 GB and 10 GB of data for the recharges done within the period of the Happy New Year offer, which is slated to end on March 31. However, the data offers remain available till April 1. In the new offer, the Jio users can claim up to 10 GB of free data on early recharges.