Jio to relaunch Prime membership with 1-year price guarantee after Airtel plan changes

Reliance Jio is set to relaunch its Prime membership programme, offering customers an assurance that their tariff or plan will not change for the next year, within a week of Bharti Airtel discontinuing its lower-priced 1.5 GB daily data plans. Jio also plans to enhance benefits under its Rs 299 plan, according to company sources.

“Jio Prime Membership Programme was originally created as an act of gratitude to Jio’s first 100 million customers. It is reintroducing the programme to provide assurance of price guarantee and a range of additional benefits, for Jio’s family of over 500 million users,” a source said.

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Jio Prime will be available to all existing prepaid and postpaid customers for a joining fee of Rs 300, the source said.

“Customers on other networks can enrol by porting to Jio or activating a new Jio connection,” the source said.

The company is also planning to add a Jio Hotstar subscription, 5,000 GB of Google Cloud storage and free access to Google’s AI engine, Pro Google Gemini, to the Rs 299 pack, which offers 1.5 GB of data per day.

A query sent to Jio in this regard elicited no reply.

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The move comes after Airtel last week discontinued its Rs 299, Rs 319, Rs 579, Rs 619 and Rs 649 prepaid plans, which offered 1.5 GB of data per day along with unlimited calling.

Subscribers to the discontinued Rs 299 plan will now have to opt for Airtel’s Rs 349 pack to get a higher data usage limit, resulting in a price increase of about 16%.

Airtel’s Rs 199 plan with 2 GB of data for 28 days and Rs 219 plan with 2 GB of data for 30 days remain unchanged.

Experts said Airtel’s move signals an industry shift towards higher tariffs as telecom companies focus on improving average revenue per user (ARPU).