Reliance Jio Prime Subscription Deadline May Be Extended by a Month

With the Jio Happy New Year Offer finally coming to a close on March 31, Reliance Jio users have until Friday to sign up for a Jio Prime membership in order to avail the company’s services at a nominal rate of roughly Rs. 10 per day. And though the offer seems quite lucrative, not many have reportedly subscribed to Jio Prime service yet, which may make Reliance Jio extended the sign-up date by another.

This information comes from TeleAnalysis, which quotes sources at Reliance Jio as saying the operator may extend the deadline to become a Jio Prime member due to lower-than-expected sign-ups. The operator is said to be mulling extending the deadline as only 22-27 million of its over 100 million subscribers have become Prime members so far, just 50 percent of Reliance Jio’s targeted figure for Prime memberships. However, the decision has not been finalised yet.

Perhaps Reliance Jio is waiting till the last moment to take the decision to extend the deadline for subscribing to Jio Prime in hopes that last-minute rush to sign up for the membership may eventually meet its target.

Reliance Jio hit the 100 million subscriber mark last month, which was announced at an event along with the new Jio Prime subscription plans. A research conducted by brokerage firm Bernstein concluded that Jio users are likely to continue with the service even after the Happy New Year offer ends.

Another survey by Bank of America-Merrill Lynch found that 84 percent of Jio customers will likely take up the Prime Offer, which means it’s possible that many people might have left it to the last minute to subscribe to Jio Prime in the hope for even better offers.

The Jio Prime membership requires Jio users to pay an annual subscription fee of Rs. 99. Once this is done, subscribers can choose any one of the Jio Prime plans on offer. The Rs. 303 plan includes unlimited calls (like all other Jio plans) along with 1GB of free data per day for 28 days. Additionally, the company also announced its Buy One Get One Free offer earlier this month which gives an additional 5GB data on recharge of Rs. 303 and 10GB data on recharge of Rs. 499 or higher.

There are other plans as well on offer to Jio Prime subscribers, and people have found ways where you can get back the Rs. 99 subscription fees as well. On the other hand, rivals such as Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular and BSNL have launched their bundled data plans offering up to 2GB data per day in the price bracket of Rs. 300-500 to compete with Reliance Jio Prime plans.