Airtel, Idea and Vodafone plan to beat Jio Rs 49

Airtel, Idea and Vodafone plan to beat Jio Rs 49 plan that gives unlimited free calls

Jio could face a tough fight from its rival companies-- Idea, Airtel and Vodafone-- on its much-talked about Rs 49 plan for JioPhones. Reportedly, these companies are planning to launch a plan priced at equal or lower than Jio's Rs 49 plan to intensify the ongoing tariff war.

"There is always a possibility of coming up with a similar bundled plan or something even more compelling than the Rs 49 JioPhone offer to hold on to our significant feature phone user base," a senior executive of one the 3 telcos told Economic Times.

The report further states that India has about 70 per cent of population running 2G data on feature phones. Jio's lowest rental plan of Rs 49 could disrupt this 2G market by attracting users with its cheap data and free voice call plans thus, leading to the migration of this 2G population to 4G network.

Jio launched Rs 49 plan for its JioPhone users. The company, under this plan, offers 1GB data and unlimited free voice calls for 28 days. This is till date one of the lowest rental plans that any telecom company has ever offered.

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The telecom industry is badly hit by Jio's raging price war. According to ET, where on one hand Jio reported a healthy average revenue per user (ARPU) of Rs 154 in the quarter to December, Airtel and Idea's revenue dropped to Rs 123 and Rs 114 respectively.

Jio recently also announced an overhaul of its existing 1GB and 1.5GB data plans. The company has increased the data limit of all its 1GB plans to 1.5GB and all 1.5GB to 2GB. The company has increased the validity of few plans and even updated its booster packs.

In a related news, the company has also started taking second-round of pre-bookings for JioPhones. Buyers can book up to 5 devices this time. The company, after its first round of JioPhone bookings, had said that it would start the second slot of sales only after it delivers all 6 million JioPhone units that were ordered at the first time.

The company initially planned to start the second-round of booking after Diwali but it didn't happen. The date was further delayed during which we saw the launch of other feature and smartphones launched by Idea, Airtel, Vodafone and BSNL in partnership with domestic smartphone makers.