Reliance Jio is now trading up as it drops its cheapest prepaid packs

• Reliance Jio has withdrawn two of its packs for ₹19 and ₹52.
• The cheapest package now available from Jio is ₹98.
• Airtel and Vodafone continue to have really cheap and affordable plans starting at ₹23 and ₹19 respectively.

One of India’s leading telecom provider Reliance Jio has withdrawn its lowest packs for recharge worth ₹19 and ₹52. Now, the cheapest package available from Jio is ₹98.

The move comes right after Jio announced that it was moving away from its free unlimited calls offer and will now be charging 6 paise per minute for calls.

Jio is making these changes to recover its average revenue per user or ARPU.

This is the first time that the Mukesh Ambani-led telecom network is moving away from cheap mobile tariff plans which has been its USP since launch in 2016. This strategy has helped the newcomer and challenger gain over 300 million subscribers.

At an annual general meeting in August, Ambani said that they are looking to target 500 million subscribers. However, the company also launched Jio Fibre last month which offers monthly and annual plans across price points, and this move could indicate that it eyeing a larger pie of internet consumers.

Meanwhile, this is good news for Airtel and Vodafone. They continue to have really cheap and affordable plans starting at ₹23 and ₹19 respectively. In fact, in the Delhi NCR area, Vodafone continues to offer a pack for ₹19 which provide unlimited calls and data for 2 days.

Since January 2019, Jio added 58.8 million users and now has around 348.2 million users. It overtook Airtel to become the second largest telecom provider in the country and needs 27 million more users to beat Vodafone and become India’s largest telecom network.

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