Last year, Vodafone merged with Idea Cellular to become a single entity and also became, biggest network service provider in India. However, emerging player Reliance Jio is growing fast and the former's reign might not last long considering the company's recent initiative to discontinue services of people with low currency (less than Rs 35).
Now, probably facing backlash and to mitigate mass migration, Vodafone Idea has launched new Rs 154 tariff plan that offers the validity for 184 days.
As per the Rs 154 voucher, it offers 600 minutes of talk time, but only between 11:00 pm and 6:00 am. On the other times, calling (national & local) charge is 2.5p/s. For data, you will be charged 4p/10KB and 10p/10KB on non-Vodafone circles.
As far as the SMS is concerned, Vodafone will charge Rs 1 per local message and Rs 1.5 per national message.
Though the benefits on offer in the Vodafone Rs 154 plan is not compelling compared to rival tariff options, it will definitely serve one purpose that is to help the subscriber on the verge of getting his/her network discontinued for lack of stable currency and extend it till six months.
This will also benefit the consumers who have linked their Vodafone Idea SIM to the bank and Aadhaar card so that they continue getting transaction notifications, which is very important in the digital economy we live.
However, it would have been a better deal, if Vodafone had replicated Airtel's recently launched Rs 100 and Rs 500 plan, which offers a lifetime of incoming calls but have to pay for extending the validity for outgoing calls. Also, offer assured talk time (Rs 81.75 and Rs 420.73) for the lifetime.
Given the stiff competition from Reliance Jio, both Airtel and Vodafone should come up with better tariff plans to keep the loyal customers and also attract new subscribers or else they will lose out to the competition.
