We all were caught in the storm of Reliance Jio when they gave away free connections to their telecom with bonus packages of 3G/4G data along with calls and SMS. Millions of people got the SIM for not just themselves but for their friends or family as well. A few months later, Jio started charging their customers for the services. A few numbers dropped but soon it caught up. And guess what, according to the latest reports Reliance Jio crossed the 300 Million customers mark on March 2. The most astounding thing to note here is the time taken by Jio to achieve this – just 2 and a half years. That is overwhelmingly splendid if you compare it Bharti Airtel, which achieved this feat in its 19th year.
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Back in 2017, Reliance Jio became the fastest telecom company in the world to cross the 100 million mark, within just 170 days of its launch. If it follows the same trajectory in the future, it would not be a big surprise to see Reliance Jio as the leading telecom company in India in terms of the number of customers. As of now, Bharti Airtel stands at 340.3 Million customers (at the end of January this year). Vodafone Idea leads the pack with over 400 Million customers in India. However, they got this number after Vodafone India and Idea Cellular merged their mobile business on August 31, 2018.
What stands out with Jio is that it had some of the best marketing minds in the world at its helm. They managed to create the need for internet and calling amongst the people of India. In a way, they made people addicted to consuming information or entertainment on their phone and indulge in calling on a regular basis. Moreover, they tapped into the issues that the people of India faced- Low-speed data. Reliance Jio provided what no other telecom company was providing- high-speed data at cheap rates. This invariably affected the business of other telecom companies and they too had to drop the prices of their services to sustain in the market. Jio had a simple game plan of charging ₹500 from 10 people rather than ₹5000 from a single person. They focussed on the volume of customers rather than getting more out of the same customer. This approach has now led them to the brink of being the biggest telecom company in India in a couple of years at the most.
