According to a survey conducted by Bank of America Merrill Lynch, a majority of telecom customers in India want to try out Reliance Jio’s services but as a secondary connection. The survey findings demonstrated high satisfaction among consumers with their service providers, and 95% of consumers indicated they were satisfied in one way or another.
The findings indicate that Bharti Airtel customers were least interested in using Jio as a primary SIM with 21% of Airtel users said that they may use Jio as a primary SIM if quality is good. Bharti Airtel users were most satisfied with their operator at 96%.
Reliance Jio, which launched commercial services on September 5, is offering free data and voice services till December 31 to all its existing and new customers.
The survey finding reveals that 24% of respondents are open to using it as a primary SIM if Jio network quality is good. It said that a further 11% of respondents look to use Jio services through mifi/dongle devices, while a total of 9% of the sample do not want to use Jio in any form.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch said, “We consider 24% to be a high percentage of consumers who would be willing to move to Jio. It said that incumbents like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular will try to retain subscribers by offering freebies or matching tariffs, which would likely lead to an increase in competitive intensity.
According to the brokerage, RCom and Aircel will be the most vulnerable telcos as 33% and 28% of their respective subscribers were willing to shift to Jio as a primary SIM.
The survey covered 1,000 mobile phone users across India. About 75% of these consumers have monthly bills of Rs 250 or more, a potential target segment for the Mukesh Ambani-led telco, the brokerage said.
The survey findings reveal that 92% of customers will look to increase data usage with a decline in tariffs and improvement in speeds, while 59% of the respondents mentioned that they would be consuming more video, while 33% of participants exhibited a willingness to increase their overall surfing (33%).
“We note that in anticipation of data growth, the telcos are increasing their capacity and making additional investments so that their networks are ready to handle the incremental data load,” the brokerage said in its report.
The survey findings also highlighted keenness among respondents to access free voice calls, with 69% claiming they would buy a specific 4G smartphone if such a phone would help them to access Jio’s free unlimited voice plan.
20% of respondents said that they will look to purchase a Jio 4G-supported handset when they replace their existing mobiles. The balance of 11% of respondents are not looking to upgrade to a new 4G-enabled smartphone just in order to get Jio’s free voice services, the findings said.
“We believe that such a high propensity of customers willing to buy 4G handsets to access Jio services increases the risk of impact on incumbents’ voice revenues subject to Jio voice quality being good,” the brokerage said.
Call drops is not a major issue, with only 15% complaining about it. For customers, bigger issues are slow data speeds and a no value for money proposition.
