Jio takes price war to post-paid segment

Reliance Jio Infocomm, India’s disruptive new wireless operator, has opened a new front in its price war with the incumbents with the launch of a new post-paid tariff at roughly half the price of the plans offered by its rivals. The Economic Times writes that the INR199 (USD2.9) plan features 25GB of data, along with international calls at INR0.50 per minute, international roaming at INR2 per minute, MB or SMS and free access to the suite of Jio applications. The news outlet notes that equivalent plans from Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular are prices at around INR389 to INR400 for 20GB of data per month, whilst international roaming costs an extra INR149.

Although only a tiny fraction of Indian subscribers are on post-paid plans, they generate far higher ARPU than pre-paid users and are a vital source of revenue for the nation’s struggling wireless operators: according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI’s) latest data, less than 5% of customers were on contract plans whilst monthly ARPU for post-paid GSM/LTE subscribers in Q4 2017 was INR348, compared to just INR67 for pre-paid users.