Telcos are leaving no stone unturned to grow their user base in India. The competition has become intense with the start of this new year. After Reliance Jio made a recent attempt to give competitors a tough time, the leader of the Indian telecom market Airtel revealed it had a neat trick up its sleeve.
In an attempt to counter Jio's latest revised plans, Airtel is offering extra data and validity on two of its popular prepaid plans. Airtel subscribers recharging for Rs 448 or Rs 509 get extended validity and with it comes extra 1GB data per day benefit as per the new trend in popular plans.
Earlier, Airtel's Rs 448 plan used to offer a validity of 70 days, where users would get 70GB 4G data on a 1GB-per-day basis along with unlimited local and STD calls (250 minutes per day or 1,000 minutes per week). With the change, users now get 1GB 4G data per day for 82 days, which brings the total to 82GB.
Also read: Reliance Jio slashes tariffs, offers more data on existing plans
As for Airtel's Rs 509 plan, users earlier got 84 days of validity with 1GB data per day, which would put the total data available to users at 84GB. Now, Airtel has revised the plan to add seven more days' validity and offer 1GB data per day for 91 days.
The free-calling benefit is unchanged on this plan, but users must note that if the limit is exhausted, calls will be charged at 30 paise per minute.
With these revised plans, Airtel is on a par with its biggest competitor Reliance Jio in the market. Reliance Jio's offers Rs 459 and Rs 499 plans, which compete directly with Airtel's Rs 448 and Rs 509 tariffs.
Under Jio's network, users who choose the Rs 459 plan get 1GB data per day for 84 days and those opting for Rs 499 get 1GB data for 91 days. Reliance Jio offers unlimited voice calls, roaming and STD, access to MyJio apps and unlimited SMS for the duration of any plan.
Given that Airtel's revised plans are slightly costlier than what Jio offers now, it makes no sense for users to switch networks. Meanwhile, Jio has been making changes to further increase the worth of its prepaid plans as opposed to its rivals.
Airtel's revised plans come just days after it launched the Rs 799 plan to offer 3.5GB 4G data every day for a period of 28 days. This plan was launched to cater to the demand of high-data-consuming users.
In comparison with Reliance Jio's competing Rs 799 plan, Airtel managed to win on this one by offering 500MB extra data each day.
