Mukesh Ambani’s plan to begin mobile services at Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd by August has caused incumbent operators led by Bharti Airtel Ltd to cut data tariffs to stem defections.
Airtel will offer prepaid customers as much as 67% more data for the same fees, according to a statement from India’s largest mobile company Sunday. Idea, the third-biggest operator controlled by billionaire Kumar Mangalam Birla’s Aditya Birla group, is offering as much as 45% more data, the mobile company said 15 July.
High-speed data
Jio, whose strategy is to offer high-speed data cheaply to lure users, faces a rate fight even before starting operations as it missed multiple deadlines, giving rivals time to improve their networks and come up with revised plans. The Reliance company will offer only fourth-generation services in India, the world’s second-largest smartphone market where users are projected to double in a few years from 220 million at present.
Vodafone India Ltd, the country’s second-biggest mobile operator, didn’t immediately respond to an e-mailed request for comment on its rates. The top three operators together control about 60% of the Indian mobile market by users.
Beta Testing
Jio has 1.5 million customers in its beta tests and is in the process of evaluating when to begin commercial operations, Anshuman Thakur, the company’s head of strategy, told reporters 15 July.
Ambani, India’s richest person, said in March that Jio would offer mobile broadband speeds that are 40 to 80 times faster than current average speeds and the network has been designed to provide 10 gigabytes of monthly data for every user.
Data has emerged as key to the Indian market, where almost 90% of 151.09 million broadband subscribers access the Internet via mobile devices, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).