Reliance Jio Wishes India Happy New Year, Free Data For 5.2 Cr Subscribers Till March 2017

Just a couple of days after announcing that it acquired a record five crore subscribers in just 83 days, Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio today announced the Jio Happy New Year offer for new and existing Jio subscribers.

With rousing applause punctuating his every sentence, Mukesh Ambani took the stage to give a short report on the Reliance Jio journey since it launched commercially in September 05, 2016.

From 4th December, 2016, every new Jio subscriber will get free data till March 2017 as part of the Jio Happy New Year offer, which is just an extension of the Jio Welcome offer announced in September. Under the offer, every new Jio subscriber will be entitled to the network¡¯s data, voice, video and other Jio apps for completely free till March 31, 2017.

No, Mr Ambani didn¡¯t forget about existing Jio subscribers! He confirmed that all existing 5.2 crore Jio users will automatically be signed up for the Happy New Year offer from January 1, 2017, with free data usage benefits extended till 31st March 2017. No need for existing Jio subscribers to get a new SIM card, Mr Ambani said, as they¡¯ll be automatically upgraded to the Happy New Year offer.

AFP

Mr Ambani claimed that in the first three months of its journey, Jio has grown faster than the likes of Facebook and WhatsApp, in terms of acquiring customers. He also reiterated that Reliance Jio is committed to keeping all domestic voice calls made by Jio customers free forever.

Mr Ambani also dropped more stats on Reliance Jio users. According to him, more than 80 percent of Jio users consume about 1 GB data per day, while the other 20 percent consume disproportionate amount of data, contributing to network congestion.

Attacking other cellular operators

In a scathing attack on existing cellular operators, Mr Ambani claimed that Jio hasn¡¯t quite received call transferring support from existing telecom operators in the country.

He further claimed that over 900 crore voice calls from Reliance Jio¡¯s 4G VoLTE network were blocked by three of Jio¡¯s largest competitors in the past three months. Even number portability requests have been stalled by existing operators, denying people benefits of Jio's superior technology.

Addressing concerns of network congestion and call drops, Mr Ambani claimed that Reliance Jio¡¯s call block rate has come down to 20 percent as of yesterday -- the number was close to 90 percent in the first few days after Jio¡¯s commercial launch.

Mr Ambani also mentioned that with eKYC and Aadhar verification, new Jio subscribers are now able to get a working Jio SIM connection within a few minutes, also claiming that Jio SIMs were being home delivered in some cities.