Jio 8th Anniversary: Offers on Recharge Plans, Benefits | News

New Delhi, Sep 5 (PTI) India's largest telecom operator Reliance Jio marked its 8th anniversary milestone on Thursday doling out offers on select recharge plans for its users.

According to information on Jio.com website, those recharging between September 5 and September 10 will get three benefits worth Rs 700 with quarterly plans of Rs 899 and Rs 999 as well as annual plan of Rs 3,599.

Benefits on offer include subscription to 10 OTTs and 10 GB data pack with 28 day-validity worth Rs 175, subscription to three months of gold membership of Zomato at no cost among others benefits.

The two offerings -- Rs 899 and Rs 999 plans -- currently have daily data limit of 2GB and have validity of 90 days and 98 days, respectively, while Rs 3,599 plan comes with daily data quota of 2.5 GB, valid for 365 days.

It is pertinent to mention here that in September 2016, Jio's entry with free voice calls and cheap data rates dislodged well-entrenched rivals, and the Mukesh Ambani-led telco subsequently emerged as the nation's top carrier.

In a span of 170 days of its launch, Jio had crossed 100-million customer mark by February 2017 -- a remarkable feat for the newcomer which added an average 7 customers every single second of every single day during that period.

With a war cry for 2G Mukt Bharat, Reliance pledged to democratise digital revolution in India, and pass the benefits of technology to every Indian.

The company followed up on its promise with JioPhone (intelligent smartphone), JioBharat (ultra-affordable 4G phone), Jio AirFibre (fixed wireless broadband offering) and full fledged 5G services.

In the latest AGM, Reliance Industries' Chairman Mukesh Ambani outlined a grand vision for Jio's future infused with AI and deeptech.

Ambani announced up to 100 GB of free cloud storage for Jio users and spoke about the AI service platform (Jio Brain), national AI infrastructure (gigawatt-scale AI-ready data centres in Jamnagar), Jio TvOS with voice assistant HelloJio, and JioPhoneCall AI.

Today, Jio has over 490 million subscribers, a count that includes the largest 5G subscriber base of 130 million globally, outside of China.

With 8 per cent of global data traffic, Jio has emerged as the world's largest mobile data network. Currently, 60 per cent of India's total data traffic is carried on Jio's 4G and 5G networks, with the average data usage per user per month increasing more than 73 times since 2016, according to estimates.

Despite this massive growth in data consumption and usage, the cost of data in India remains the lowest in the world. The current cost per GB is 30 times lower than in 2016 when Jio first entered the market, market watchers say.