To counter Reliance Jio 4G packs, Airtel offers 1.4GB data per day with its new prepaid plan

To counter Reliance Jio 4G internet packs, Bharti Airtel has come up with a new prepaid plan. Under the new plan, Airtel is offering 1.4GB data per day and unlimited voice calling in Rs 419. The new Airtel prepaid plan is an open market plan which means it is available across the country and can be recharged from company’s offline as well as online store along with the other vendors.

Airtel’s Rs 419 plan comes with a validity of 75 days and also offers 100 free text messages to customers every day.

The news Rs 419 plan will compete with Jio’s Rs 398 and BSNL’s Rs 349 plan. The Jio plan offers 2GB data per day along with unlimited voice calling benefits, 100 SMS per day and complimentary subscription to Jio Apps for 70 days.

Meanwhile, a report by Bernstein claimed thatReliance Jio, the new telecom player, may capture the top position by 2021 on a revenue basis.

“Given the current rate of ongoing customer acquisition, Jio could reach the leading position on a revenue basis by 2021 and on a subscriber basis by 2022,” Bernstein analysts Chris Lane and Samuel Chen said in the report on Monday.

No start-up operator has managed such a feat anywhere and certainly not in a market where penetration levels among the ‘middle classes’ were already high, it said, adding Bharti Airtel had survived extreme Darwinian competition to emerge as a competitive market leader, while Vodafone has the backing of a global giant.

Bernstein expects Jio to reach 28% revenue market share and 26% subscriber share by the end of this financial year (March 2019) as it did not see both Bharti and Vodafone responding directly. “Neither Bharti nor Vodafone Idea have the stomach to engage in a pointless subsidy war. Instead we believe they have accepted their fate, and are looking forward to a time when Jio, having achieved a leading position, starts to monetise their base through higher pricing,” the report said.