ADVERTISEMENT

Reliance Extends Jio Prime Membership For One Year At No Extra Cost 

Jio Prime members to get one year’s complimentary benefits at no cost. 

A Reliance Jio logo outside a store in Mumbai. (Photographer: Vishal Patel/BloombergQuint)
A Reliance Jio logo outside a store in Mumbai. (Photographer: Vishal Patel/BloombergQuint)

Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. said that it will allow existing Jio Prime users to extend their membership for one more year without paying for it, as India’s youngest telecom operator looks to maintain its pace of growth.

“All Jio Prime members who have subscribed to the exclusive membership benefits till March 31 will get another year of complimentary Prime benefits at no additional fee,” India's third-largest telecom operator announced in a press statement. The offer will be for a limited period, the company added, without specifying the time frame.

New Jio users will be able to avail Jio Prime membership, which offers additional data at same prices compared to non-Prime members, for an unchanged annual fee of Rs 99. The subscription service, rolled out in February 2017, has garnered over 17.5 crore members, the company added.

Also Read: Reliance Jio Is Now India’s Third-Largest Telecom Company

Reliance Jio added close to 83 lakh subscribers in January, according to the latest data provided by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. That compares with the combined addition of 39 lakh by Bharti Airtel Ltd., Idea Cellular Ltd. and Vodafone India Ltd.

Jio continues to offer lower tariffs, having cut its prices twice in January. Its JioPhone too is helping the operator bring more feature phone subscribers on board as it continues to disrupt the world’s second largest telecom market with its aggressive pricing. That reflected in the performance of the overall industry.

The telecom sector lost more than 1.5 crore subscribers as the number of multi-sim users fell. That’s due to consolidation among service providers and cheap bundled plans.

Jio’s subscriber addition, on the other hand, rose for the second consecutive month after falling in November.

Reliance Extends Jio Prime Membership For One Year At No Extra Cost 

Reliance Jio’s customer market share also increased the most in January—90 basis points compared with 30 to 45 basis points for its rivals.

Since Reliance Jio’s launch, only Vodafone India’s customer market share has declined, while Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular have managed to protect their share.

Revenue Impact

The Prime membership fees boosted Jio’s average revenue per user in the last two quarters and its share in the total revenue also increased.

Moreover, the telecom operator is expected to report higher revenue in the fourth quarter of the current financial year as it accounts for a bigger chunk of the Prime membership fee.

The revenue coming in from a subscriber -- who availed the membership in April 2017 -- was distributed equally in the four quarters of the year. However, a subscriber who joined in the fourth quarter of financial year 2018 will see the entire Rs 84 -- adjusted for GST -- being accounted as revenue in March ended quarter.

This will lift company’s revenue in the fourth quarter of this year and could pull down the revenue in the first quarter of next as the company will not see any Prime membership revenue coming from old customers.