The latest employee-driven referral offer by Reliance Jio is likely to propel usage and hype ahead of the commercial launch, which is expected sometime this year, CLSA said in its latest report.
The new offer allows Reliance group employees to invite 10 friends to sign up for Jio 4G services. The invite, which has to be sent by a RIL employee, will allow people to buy a LYF smartphone, which will come bundled with free unlimited 4G data and voice.
Similar invite-led strategy was implemented by OnePlus in 2014-15 during the launch of its handsets, which helped it generate hype and maintain user experience through control over inventory. Under the new offer, Reliance Jio is also providing free unlimited access to its app-based content services, which include Live TV, Video on demand, and music streaming.
CLSA said that unlimited access to video content on mobile will support seeding of video consumption habits on mobile devices and could propel data usage, given that current mobile data tariffs make video viewing very expensive, unlimited access to video content on mobile will support seeding of video consumption habits on mobile
"While the 3G/4G adoption has picked up with subscribers tripling over the past two years to 120 million, Jio's 4G launch should help accelerate this adoption," the firm said.
CLSA expects that Jio would also launch more subscriber tests, closer to the commercial launch. On the average revenues per user (ARPU) in the industry, CLSA said that rapid 3G/4G adoption will drive growth in the high-ARPU subscriber base, from 165 million currently to 300 million by March 2018 with ARPU reaching over Rs300. The report added that such users were set to account for 60% of industry revenues.
Reliance Jio and Airtel that have adequate 3G/4G spectrum will be favourably placed, and stand to gain positively from the trend, the report said, adding that Idea Cellular and Vodafone need further spectrum.
