Reliance Jio has brought back its Jio Prime membership at Rs 299, giving subscribers a one-year price lock on their selected prepaid or postpaid plan, along with a RS 300 voucher for JioHome or JioPC and priority support.
For telecom users, the headline benefit is the price lock. But the structure also changes the effective cost of staying on a Jio plan. At Rs 300 a year, the membership works out to Rs 25 a month, making it an effective add-on to the user's existing tariff.
Why Airtel Users Could Take Another Look At Jio
The pricing could put additional pressure on Bharti Airtel, particularly among users looking at the entry-level prepaid segment. Around 20% of Airtel users were on the Rs 299 plan, which has since been discontinued.
Based on the current pricing comparison, an Airtel user switching to Jio could save around Rs 600 over 12 months, given Airtel's Rs 50 higher monthly price. After accounting for the Rs 300 Prime membership fee, the annual saving would still be around Rs 300.
ALSO READ: Jio Reintroduces Rs 299 Prime Membership Plan After Airtel Rejig
Jio is also offering a Rs 300 cashback for successful referrals, adding another incentive for existing subscribers to bring in new users.
For the wider industry, Vodafone Idea and Jio continue to offer Rs 299 plans, keeping the entry-level price point in focus.
The impact on subscriber churn will depend on how users value the additional benefits and whether Jio can convert the price difference into switching decisions.
Background
The move comes as telecom operators continue to rationalise their prepaid portfolios and seek to improve average revenue per user (ARPU).
Airtel's decision to withdraw its Rs 299 base plan, which offered 1GB of daily data for 28 days, effectively lifted the entry-level unlimited plan price by 16.7% to Rs 349. The new plan also offers 1.5GB of data per day.
Analysts at Centrum Broking described Airtel's latest changes as one of its biggest single-day prepaid portfolio cleanups in recent years, calling it part of a broader tariff rationalisation exercise.
Several less-popular plans across 56-day and 90-day validity periods were also discontinued.
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