Mumbai: Reliance Jio, telecom arm of Mukesh Ambani-led Relaince Industries, has defeated incumbent telcos Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular in earning more average revenue per user or ARPU in a couple of months of launch of Jio's paid service.
A report in The Economic Times cites a study conducted by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers that says "Reliance Jio’s ARPU grew to $4.70 or Rs 300 after the Mumbai-based telco ended freebies in March."
Jio ended all its free services on March 31 after six months when the new entrant in the telecom market had started free data, free voice call services on September 5 last year. Since then Jio has been mired in disputes with incumbents.
As of March 31, Reliance Jio that has energy giant Reliance Industries as its parent, retained 67 per cent of or 72 million of its total 108 million customers as paid users who had subscribed to Jio Prime.
In December 2016, RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani had said in a press briefing that India became number one user of internet data due to arrival of Jio and its free services.
"Jio users consumed more than 100 crore GB of data per month on the Jio network and that’s more than 3.3 crore GB a day,” Ambani had said.
Telecom market in India witnessed a heightened competition between Jan-March 2016 to April-June 2017 after advent of Jio with free attractive offers, the ET report adds.
India's top three telecom companies Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular collectively account for 60 per cent broadband subscribers. These cellular operators had had to cut voice and data tariffs to prevent migration of customers to Relaince Jio, the report added.
