Reliance Jio made its entry into India two years ago and shook the telecom industry by its methodologies. It was not only about the extremely low pricing, free data, or free calling that Jio was able to become this popular, the network speeds and the achievement of first VoLTE network in India were also the highlights which contributed to Jio’s meteoric rise. In the last two years, Jio has accomplished a lot by introducing new plans, services, offers and even started a postpaid segment. This year, Jio has also stepped into the broadband segment and the smart home sector. With so many achievements on Reliance Jio’s turf, in only two years, we would like to shed light on the top ten of them.
World’s largest all IP Network
Reliance Jio was the first telecom operator in the country to deploy an all IP network, with LTE spectrum across 800MHz, 1800MHz and 2300MHz bands, and the largest fibre footprint. The telco also became the one with the broadest LTE coverage in India compared to any other carrier. With such growth rate, Jio plans to have 99% of the Indian population under its subscriber base. Also, Reliance Jio’s 4G network revolution helped India in expanding its network beyond the total network of 2G, which was set up by other operators in the last 25 years.
Free Voice Calling
Again, Reliance Jio was the first operator in the country which started offering free voice calling bundled with its plans in India. Before Jio’s time, most subscribers were dependent on talk time-based plans and bundled offerings were mostly unheard of, however, things have now become opposite as Reliance Jio started offering free local, STD or roaming calls in all of its plans.
Mobile Data Consumption
Undoubtedly because of the high speed and cheap data which Reliance Jio shipped to its users, the mobile data consumption in India has gone up from 20 crore GB per month to nearly 370 crore GB per month. Jio customers alone are consuming almost 240 crore GB of that data. After Reliance Jio’s commencement of operations in the country, India went up from 155th in broadband penetration to 1st in the world in terms of mobile data consumption. Jio also gained the title of becoming the world’s 1st and only Exabyte Telecom network with data transmitted over Jio’s network surpassing 100 crores GB per month.
Fastest Subscriber Ramp up in the World
Reliance Jio set the record on a global level by averaging a rate of 7 customers per second for 170 days straight with the total base reaching 100 million. As of June 2018, Jio boasts of 215 million customers.
Acing Trai Speed Test
Reliance Jio has also topped the charts according to the Indian telecom regulator as the Mukesh Ambani led telco has consistently performed better than the other carriers in the areas of 4G network coverage, usage and data speeds month after month.
Tariff Simplifications
Before Jio’s time, there used to be 22,000 plans on the shelves from which people had to choose from. However, after Reliance Jio introduced its bundled and combo offerings, all the telcos have rushed to adopt the same models, and now the number of plans being offered by telcos has gone down significantly. Now users can make an informed choice because of the low number of plans.
Hand in Hand Growth of Digital Ecosystem
The digital ecosystem consisting of social media sites like Facebook, YouTube etc. has thrived extensively after Reliance Jio started operations. After the rise in the number of subscribers and data users, India has become a prime market for Google and Facebook with an estimated 70 million additions in the first year of Jio’s commencement of operations.
Changing Device Ecosystem
Reliance Jio also introduced its smartphone sub-brand LYF in India which propelled the other smartphone makers to ship LTE enabled devices in the market thus marking a turning point in the industry. Reliance Jio also introduced JioFi, a mobile hotspot device through which 2G/3G phone users were also able to reap benefits for 4G, which was again a one of its kind product.
JioPhone
With the introduction of its extremely affordable 4G device, JioPhone, Jio was able to add a large chunk of new customers to its subscriber base and also functioned as a catalyst in increasing the 4G penetration and internet penetration in the country. As of June 30, Reliance Jio boasted of an impressive 25 million JioPhone users.
Focus on Digital Content
In the last two years, Reliance Jio has also availed a lot of content to its subscribers and has gone on to acquire Saavn and also partnered up with ALT Balaji and Eros to bring the best content onboard its applications. Jio will also be delving in the digital education segment, as Jio’s parent company has acquired a majority stake in Embibe, the unique data-driven education services platform catering to Engineering, Medical, Banking and Class 8-10 (Foundation) exams.
