After the initial chaos and long queues, Reliance Jio episode now seems to have calmed down, especially after demonetization of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes.
To elaborate the figures, the subscriber growth has been decreased to less than 50 percent. Further, according to the report from Motilal Oswal demonetization has further decreased the average footfall outside the stores to buy a Jio SIM.
We admit that there is no link between demonetization and Jio SIMs but people now have to stand in queues to exchange or deposit their old invalid currency, which is definitely more important than buying a Jio SIM.
Also, analysts from Motilal Oswal claims that since Jio is unlikely to hit its targetted 100 million subscribers, there is a strong probability that it will extend the Welcome Offer to March 2016.
“RJio had targeted to reach 100m subscriber base by Dec-16. If RJio is unable to achieve this target, there is high probability of extension of the Welcome Offer beyond Dec-16. Channel partners see high risk of subscriber churn post the Welcome Offer, as most subscribers are using Jio as a second SIM to take advantage of free offerings,” analysts at Motilal Oswal said.
Poor service, regular call drops, poor voice quality is to be blamed for this decline in our opinion. Further, users have regularly complained about speed drops during last three months.
Earlier, TRAI ordered Reliance Jio to prepone the Welcome Offer to December 3, 2016 at least for the subscription following TRAI’s guidelines of 90 days for such offers. Most of the customers use Jio SIM as their secondary SIM just for the free services, While for the regular and primary usage people still tend to opt for other telecom operators such as Airtel, Vodafone, Idea etc.