Reliance Jio may hit subscriber base of 100 Million by March

Reliance Jio has been a favourite amidst its subscriber base thanks to the free calls and data pack services. They extended this plan to March 2017 and it seems it will lead to Reliance Jio Infocomm's subscriber base hitting a 100 million by March 2017 end said Nitin Soni, Director at Fitch Ratings.

When it comes to sustaining competetion for fellow counterparts, it is definitely going to be difficult for Idea Cellular as they lack 100 percent 4G spectrum asset on a pan-Inida basis. There has been very tough competetion between cellular operators every since Reliance Jio came with its offers.

Nitin Soni added that the the customer base of reliance may fall if Reliance starts charging its customers. Also, later when the voice and data plans (from April 1, 2017) will become paid Reliance may record a drop in the subscription base by 5 to 10 percent.

However, Nitin say that the over all data tariffs go down by 15-20 percent which will anyway benefit the customers. He also pointed out Airtel's strong market position due to its lot of spectrum asset ownership of 900 MHz bands which will eventually help the telecom operator to stand strong against Jio.

Hence, he believes, as long as the Jio service is free, a customer using Airtel, Vodafone, Idea or any other network will get a free Jio SIM to make use of the free services until March 2017.