MP PGDM-A Group03 Report
MP PGDM-A Group03 Report
MP PGDM-A Group03 Report
Submitted by
21P003 – Abhishek Singh
October 2021
PGDM, Section A (2021-2023)
MANAGEMENT DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE, GURGAON
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DECLARATION BY THE CANDIDATES
I hereby declare that the project report entitled “RELIANCE JIO” submitted by us to
MDI, Gurgaon in partial fulfilment for the requirements of the group project work is a
record of bona fide project work carried out by us under the supervision of Prof. Dr.
Kapil Kanwal. We declare that this report represents our concepts written in our words
and where others' ideas or words have been included, we have adequately cited and
referenced the original sources. We further declare that we have adhered to all
principles of academic honesty and integrity and have not misrepresented or
fabricated or falsified any idea/data/fact/source in my submission. We understand that
any violation of the above will be cause for disciplinary action by the Institute and can
also evoke penal action from the sources which have thus not been properly cited or
from whom proper permission has not been taken when needed. Further we affirm
that the contents of this report have not been submitted and will not be submitted either
in part or in full, for the award of any other degree or diploma and the same is certified.
13th Oct’2021
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Prof. Dr. Kapil Kanwal for providing his
invaluable guidance, comments and suggestions throughout the course of the project.
And then we would like to thank the college management for letting us make good use
of the digital library resources and textbooks.
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Table of Contents
1 Executive Summary 5
2 List of Figures 7
3 Introduction 8
4 Objectives 9
5 SWOT Analysis 10
6 PESTEL Analysis 11
7 Sector Overview 12
9 Research Methodology 16
10 Results 18
11 Conclusion 27
12 Recommendations 28
13 References 29
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Executive Summary
Have you ever thought about the parlance that Reliance Jio draws with the Hindi
language? “Jio” translates into “to live” when generally expressed. In the ever-growing
population of India and the demand it creates for the telecom sector, Jio took birth,
survived and succeeded in the sector becoming one of the major players in no time. It
was responsible for singlehandedly responsible for taking the telecom sector in India
by storm and has acquired a significant market share. Being a venture of Mukesh
Ambani-led Reliance Group, backed by deep pockets, it was launched in 2016 for the
public. It became an instant success by providing irresistible offers and acquired a
massive customer base. Jio fuelled its market capture by a low-cost approach which
hurt its major competitors, and Jio in no time became the largest player in this market
and is still growing at a rapid pace.
This project focusses on understanding the changes that happened in the consumer’s
behaviour in the telecom market. To understand how a new entrant could disrupt a
market dominated by a few key players and in no time acquire the largest piece of the
pie. The project has attempted to evaluate the strengths and weakness of Reliance
Jio, focussing on the various pricing strategies adopted by Jio as a new entrant and
now as a leader. It also attempts to infer the future strategies that Jio might adapt in
the future. Consumer feedback based on a questionnaire to evaluate the current
positioning strategy for Jio and gauge the consumer sentiment has also been
incorporated as an objective.
The initial SWOT and PEST analysis has revealed that Jio has become a household
name in the five years of its functioning. The telecom sector is expanding alongside
the fast-growing Indian economy and rising disposable income. A shift of mindset
towards technology is also aiding the growth in this heavily regulated sector. The core
strength of Jio has been the low-priced approach of capturing a price sensitive Indian
market. Being low cost, Jio in the past has faced issues in providing high speed data
and connectivity. The advent of new tech, like 5G and AI, has motivated Jio to look
into the 5G market and it has plans in place to roll out 5G in the Indian market post the
spectrum auctions. The current low-priced approach may affect Jio’s performance.
Porter’s five forces model has been utilised to understand the various facets of the
industry and how Jio entered and became a leader in the telecom market. The telecom
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industry is guarded by entry costs that are very high as the existing companies operate
under high levels of debt to finance their operations. Jio being backed by cash rich
Reliance industries tackled the entry barriers successfully. Jio tapped the 4G market
and created competition in this segment. TRAI regulations enabled buyers to freely
switch between carriers and thus increased the buyers bargaining powers. The advent
of Jio and Trai regulations at the same time reduced the bargaining powers of the
suppliers in the market. Jio was able to enter a highly concentrated market, acquire
the largest customer base and become the market leader.
To conduct the research, google forms were floated and responses were collected
from the target population. Non-Probability Sampling was used for the purpose of
research. Pilot test was done on the respondents and then both primary and
secondary sources of data were used to obtain relevant data. Qualitative and
quantitative analysis of the data has been done. Thematic analysis, correlation and
chi square testing are few of the techniques used in the project.
From the analysis we observed that the major age group in the respondents was 18-
25 years. The major annual income of the respondents was more than 15 lakhs. And
amongst the respondents, more than 55% of them used Jio connections. For non-Jio
users, it was observed that Airtel was the major competitor, accounting for 70% of the
non Jio market. Out of the non Jio users, more than 70% of them were associated with
their provider for the past 7 years. The primary reason for them to continue with their
old provider was the network connectivity and 80% of them shared that they had no
near future plans to change their existing network providers. On the other hand, for
the Jio users, a majority of them have been using Jio for the past 1-2 years and the
major reason for switching to Jio has been the low pricing of services on comparison
with the other network providers. More than 50% of Jio Sim users, also use additional
Jio products such as Jio-fi, Jio Phone etc. This accounts to more than 80% people
spending less than Rs. 300 on Jio products on a monthly basis.
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List of Figures
S.No. Figure
1 Age (Graph)
2 Annual Family Income (Graph)
3 Current Status of Jio Usage (Graph)
4 Current Network (Graph)
5 Loyalty (Graph)
6 Things liked about current operator (Graph)
7 Plans for switching (Graph)
8 How long Jio has been used (Graph)
9 Reasons to switch to Jio (Graph)
10 Other Jio devices – Yes or No (Graph)
11 Other Jio devices (Graph)
12 Rating of Jio services (Graph)
13 Amount INR spent (Graph)
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Introduction
Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited, popularly known as Reliance Jio, or simply Jio is an
Indian telecom and a part of Jio Platforms from the Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance
Group. Jio was launched as a beta program for Reliance employees in 2015, and on
September 5th, 2016 became publicly available. Jio was backed up by an investment
of INR 1.5 Trillion and was developed in partnerships with eight global carriers,
including British Telecom, Orange, and more. While the competition was still in the
transitionary phase from 2G/3G to $G, Jio launched as a 4G only platform and was
able to deploy its vast network to all 22 circles in India.
Jio was an instant success thanks to irresistible offers that it provided to users
including the Welcome offer, which basically gave unlimited voice and data services
at zero cost, and subsequent festive offers made sure the users never switch back.
This ultra-low-cost pricing strategy worked pretty well for Jio which now is India’s
biggest telecom operator with more than 400 million subscribers and counting. For the
competition, it was devastating with millions of user switching to Jio. Consequently,
other operators had to lower their pricing as well, thus triggering a price war in the
industry. While Jio had massive capital backing from the house of Relianc e, other
operators had to struggle with lower profitability and mounting debt.
While maintaining its low-cost approach, Jio continued its expansion to multiple
product categories including the very popular Jio Phone. Jio’s feature phone was an
instant hit thanks to its affordability and reach towards rural India where smartphones
are still not penetrated enough. Recently, Jio also announced its Jio Phone Next, an
affordable smartphone developed in collaboration with Google that will be launching
in India this Diwali. Apart from phones, Jio has a good presence in Fiber Broadband
and its Jio Giga Fiber ecosystem is getting massive consumer as well as enterprise
interests.
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Objectives
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SWOT Analysis for Jio
Jio is a five-year-old brand that has seen tremendous success and has become a
household name in India. While Jio has shown lots of positives during this time, there
are a set of challenges that will come in its way and it will be interesting to see how
Reliance Jio can maintain its leadership in such a competitive market. To evaluate this
better, we are doing a SWOT Analysis for Reliance Jio.
● Strengths - Easily the biggest strength of Jio is its low priced approach which
is not surprising given the price-sensitive nature of the Indian market. Since its
inception, Jio has maintained its value for money image not just in telecom but
in hardware devices like Jio Phone as well. These hardware devices have
complemented Jio well and the ecosystem is expected to grow even further
with broadband, gaming, and new technologies being promised by the
company.
● Weaknesses - There is one downside to Jio’s low-cost approach and this is
quality. Jio has faced some issues in the past regarding network speeds, call
drops, etc. which impact the end-user experience. Also, the question of whether
Jio is using predatory pricing to eliminate its competition is still there which will
impact its brand image.
● Opportunities - Jio has already announced it’s made in India 5G which it
promised to be rolled out very soon after spectrum auctions. 5G will be offer
tons of possibilities for Jio in the consumer as well as the enterprise segment
and will provide it the chance of increasing its ARPU. Also, the possibility of
expanding its ecosystem with Jio Phone Next, Jio Giga Fiber, etc. will bring a
new set of users and should also provide the benefit of tighter integration
between its services.
● Threats - The current price war in the market and Jio’s low average revenue
per unit will remain a threat for Jio along with similar products being launched
by competition. Jio, as part of Reliance, can also suffer from political
controversies that happened in the past with the brand.
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PESTEL Analysis for the Telcom Market
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Overview of Indian Telecom Sector and Impact of Jio
The Reliance Jio business model emphasized on offering high speed 4G mobile
services and net data packs at prices at unprecedented cheap prices. This strategy
enabled the company in effectively penetrating in the Indian telecom market and
absorb customers from rival telecom service providers. The tariff plans introduced by
Reliance Jio were cheap and innovative during the initial stage. Competing with these
prices was unsustainable for the existing telecom industry leaders due to incurring
heavy debts. Jio had employed the strategy of loss leadership and the brand started
providing free voice calls to its customers. It also offered zero roaming charges and a
diverse portfolio of applications and services which resulted in attracting many new
customers. The cheaply priced data packs also encouraged many customers to switch
from their existing 2G and 3G mobile devices to devices which supported 4G services.
These customers also contributed to the growing Jio customer base in the early growth
phase of the company.
The impact of the loss leadership strategy was that it encouraged customers of other
mobile network providers to switch towards Reliance Jio. The strategy resulted in
creating complications for brands such as Airtel, BSNL, Idea and Vodafone to retain
their existing customers and attract the new ones. As per recent TRAI regulations,
‘porting’ or switching from one operator to another had become easy for customers
and this prevented the existing operators from retaining their customers in the 4G
market.
Jio’s entry on telecom industry of India resulted in creation of a price war. Existing
brands such as Airtel, Vodafone, Idea and BSNL struggled to keep up and compete
with Jio. Airtel also litigated against Jio for offering unsustainable prices. The existing
brands lost significant chunks of their respective market shares to Jio. A court ruling
which ordered all service providers to pay additional taxes crippled the existing brands
with debt and prevented them from lowering their prices and employing a similar loss
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leadership strategy. Jio, being a relatively new entrant avoided being saddled with
debt and was able to continue with its strategy to offer data packs and services at
cheap rates. Offering almost all services at very low costs is helped J io create a
sensation in the marketplace. Jio has been able to penetrate the Indian telecom
industry in the best possible manner through its strategy of offering deep discounts
and low-price services to the price sensitive Indian customers.
Barriers to Entry
In any industry, high barriers of entry favors the existing companies as it limits the
competition faced by them internally. The entry barriers can be either industrial or
legal. The market cap of the existing companies also impacts the ability of new
entrants to flourish in the industry. The costs associated with market entry like access
to raw materials, barriers related to culture and technical standards also play a major
role in limiting new entrants.
In the case of Jio and the Indian telecom sector, the entry costs were very high as the
existing companies operate under high levels of debt to finance their operations. Huge
capital is required to obtain licenses to the spectrums and create and maintain the
infrastructure required to ensure satisfactory services. Jio was backed by a major
organization like Reliance Industries which had huge cash reserves and easy access
to debt financing which made it possible for Jio to enter the telecom market and
furthermore offer unprecedently low service charges.
Threat of substitutes
The Indian telecom sector had similar 2G and 3G services offered by all existing
operators and the services were of comparable quality. The 4G market was largely
untapped when Jio made its market entry. By offering a new service of high-speed
internet and zero calling charges, Jio capitalized on the 4G market when no other
company had invested sufficiently in 4G to compete with it. The other companies also
eventually focused on the 4G market in response to Jio. However, the price offered by
Jio was still lower than the existing companies which made the risk of customers
switching back to their pervious operators low.
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High threat of substitute can lead to lower profitability levels by limiting the industry
profits through a price ceiling. Jio employed its loss leadership strategy to ensure the
other brands couldn't act as lower priced substitutes to its services.
This became a major factor in the industry after TRAI regulations enabled easy
switching for the customers across the operators in the telecom industry. Customers
saw a significant increase in their bargaining capacity. Customers could now switch
their service from their existing operator through the option ‘port’ without changing their
number. Indian customers have been observed to price sensitive. Customer retention
mainly hinged on the ability of the operators to provide quality services and cheaper
costs.
Existing companies like Airtel and Vodafone found it difficult to lower their costs and
compete with Jio, which in turn resulted in them losing chunks of their subscribers to
Jio
The telecom industry players have low bargaining power with the customers due to
low switching costs as discussed previously. All the telecom players face similar costs
associated with maintaining infrastructure and obtaining licenses to use spectrums.
Telecom industry, in particular is not dominated by any specific suppliers in its value
chain apart from the taxes owed to the state. The operating taxes and the license costs
are common to all competitors and they require heavy capital to continue operating in
the industry.
Being backed by a cash rich Reliance Industry enabled Jio to operate in the industry
while accumulating debts and facing losses in its initial years.
The Indian customers are price-sensitive as discussed earlier and the telecom sector
is saturated in India. The main strategy for any company in the industry is to target the
market share of its rivals by offering their services at lower costs. This is precisely what
Jio did. Additionally, due to high charges, the market for mobile data consumption was
very low pre-Jio market entry.
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After the launch of Jio, a new market for mobile data was created as customers began
using mobile data extensively during the initial low data charges period. Jio created a
new segment in the market and dominated it by providing cheap data packs in order
to competition in check. Due to the low-priced alternative of Jio, several customers
switched to Jio at the expense of the existing companies who were forced to offer low
priced schemes in order to retain their customers.
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Research Methodology
• Research Design
Research Design is the framework that has been adopted to conduct the study and
find conclusions. Considering the nature of the present study where the main aim of
the study is to know the real impact of the Reliance Jio on the telecom industry of
India. Descriptive design has been adopted as it can help to properly analyze the topic,
and in turn fulfil the key objectives of the study.
The main target for the primary market research was to collect reliable and accurate
data from the target population. Google forms were used to make a structured
questionnaire online which was then sent to various groups through channels such as
e-mail and WhatsApp.
Non-Probability Sampling was used for the purpose of research. The online
questionnaire was distributed to respondents and they were also given instructions for
completing the survey. The survey was done over a period of 1 week, and each
respondent was given ample time to respond to the questionnaire.
• Pilot Testing
The initial pilot test for the survey was conducted on 20 respondents in order to
incorporate their feedback on how well did they understood the questionnaire and the
purpose of the survey. The required changes were then made and some questions
were modified after gauging the responses and analyzing the feedback.
• Data collection
The two main methods to collect data are from primary and secondary sources. As
mentioned previously, we mainly used primary sources to gather the relevant data. A
questionnaire in the form of a google form was floated to the general public in order to
know their perception of Reliance Jio. Apart from that, different articles have been
accessed to construct an overview of the Indian telecom industry and the key players
operating in the telecom market.
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Both the primary and secondary sources have been used to obtain relevant data and
it has helped to construct our research from different perspectives.
• Data Analysis
In this research, both kinds of data analysis have been done. Quantitative data has
been represented in the form of bar charts and pie charts to make them visually
appealing. We have also performed hypothesis testing on various variables.
Correlation, Chi-square test of independence have been used to measure the
effectiveness of the samples chosen for the survey.
Based on the research done, qualitative analysis has been provided for the final
positioning strategy of Reliance Jio along with the recommendations, implications and
limitations of the study undertaken.
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RESULTS
Introduction - The section of data analysis and findings is considered as the most
critical section in the study. In this section different tools and techniques are employed
by the researcher to carry out evaluation of the information collected from different
sources. Here, the data collected has been presented with the help of different charts
and tables and analysis of the same has been carried out using different themes.
Theme 1: Age
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Interpretation – From the data collected, it has been identified that approximately half
of the respondents have an annual family income of more than 15 lakhs. And the rest
of the respondents are more or less equally divided among the rest of the categories.
Theme 3: Do you currently use a Jio sim or have used it in the past?
Interpretation – It has been observed that 44% of the respondents have never used
a Jio sim card in the past whereas 55% of the respondents have used a Jio sim card
atleast once in their lives.
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Interpretation – It occurs that out of the people who do not use Jio, 70% of them use
Bharti Airtel and the rest use Vodafone Idea. It is very clear that the entry of Reliance
Jio has made the already competitive telecom sector in the country even more
competitive. The sales and profitability of the competitive brands like Airtel and
Vodafone Idea have been clearly hindered as can be seen from the data. In only a
matter of 5 years, Jio has been able to attract more than 50% of the respondents of
this particular survey. This goes on to show its successful implementation of its loss
leadership strategy.
Theme 5: For how many years have you been using your current network?
Interpretation – The data gathered shows that 70% of the non-Jio users have been
using their current brand for more than 7 years now. They have not switched to
different brands. This indicated that they are loyal customers to their respective brands
and will surely hesitate to shift to newer brands. And additional 20% have been using
it for 3-7 years. Thus, they would also come under the loyal customer base category.
So, Jio will have to use some different marketing strategy in order to attract them since
it is visible that its current strategies have not been that effective.
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Theme 6: What are the things that you like about your current operator?
Interpretation – It is clear from the above data users like the network connectivity of
their respective brand may it be Bharti Airtel or Vodafone Idea. This particular question
becomes a cue for Reliance Jio of where it needs to improve upon. No doubt that
because of the entry of Reliance Jio in the telecom sector in India, other network
providers have been forced to introduce advanced and up-graded technology in their
services and overall business strategy. This has further supported in carrying out
digital or technological transformation of the entire telecom industry of India. To sustain
in the marketplace and maintain their customer’s base, the other network providers in
the country have forcefully employed advanced and latest technologies. Thus, it can
be asserted that the speed provided by Jio was the major factor in attracting customers
and now the speed has declined with the passage of the time. The management is still
working on identifying the ways through which the data speed and network
connectivity of Jio can be enhanced in the best possible manner.
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Theme 7: Do you have any plans regarding switching to another network in the
near future?
Interpretation – As specified earlier as well, this question also tells us that majority of
the non-Jio users do not have any plans of switching their network in the near future.
At the same time, they have been using the same brand for more than 7 years. This
again reiterated the fact that they form a loyal customer base for their respective
brands and it will be very difficult for Reliance Jio to attract them. Jio has been facing
intense competition in the telecom industry primarily because it has relatively been in
the industry for a less amount of time and as a result has a small customer base. Thus,
Jio customers are now struggling to connect call with users of other mobile network
and this has resulted in creating high degree of dissatisfaction among the customers.
Theme 8: For how many years have you been using Jio?
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Interpretation – Out of the total Jio users, more than 50% have started using Jio only
for the past 1-2 years. This shows that people have recently started accepting Jio and
are appreciating its efforts. This goes on to show that Jio has been able to give intense
competition to other brands operating in the Indian Telecom industry. Most of the
participants in the study explained that better network and low tariff are the critical
factors which are still attracting customers from different urban and rural areas of the
country. In addition to this, the low-price strategy and hi-speed internet connectivity is
also encouraging the customers of other brand or network providers to switch to
reliance Jio. The various factors due to which Jio has been able to gain competitive
advantage in the industry are as follows: low prices, largest network coverage of 4G,
Hi-speed internet connectivity and no blackout days.
Interpretation – Majorly all the respondents state their reason for shifting to Jio is the
low prices that Jio offers its services for. It has been analysed that Jio has employed
loss leader strategy and this strategy has played a significant role in providing the
organisation with an opportunity to dominate the entire Indian Telecom industry. The
respondents have further explained that because of this strategy, Jio has been able to
offer its services and plans at prices which seem to be unbelievable. Even the
competitors of Jio are shocked that how the company is able to offer innovative
services at such low prices. Apart from the low prices, high speed internet connectivity
and network connectivity are also major reason for people shifting to Jio. Jio has done
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huge investment in installation of 4G line and fiber cable within the country. The cost
of investment has also increased because Jio had used fiber cables and eco-friendly
towers which are considered as expensive. The benefit of carrying out such a big
investment is that it is directly contributing to the long-term growth and development
of Reliance Jio in the Indian Telecom Industry.
Theme 10: Apart from Jio telecom, do you use any other Jio device/service?
(For eg - Jio fibre, Jio Phone, etc)
Interpretation – Apart from using Jio sim card, only half of the people use additional
services offered by Reliance Jio. This goes on to show that Jio will have to make
considerable efforts to penetrate and capture this market. Currently, Jio also does not
advertise much on this front. As soon as it will start advertising and make efforts, it will
become clear of how consumers perceive the value for these products.
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Interpretation – Of the 50% respondents that use other services of Reliance Jio, it
can be observed that Jio Fibre is the one most used by the users. Thus, it shows that
consumers perceive the product as valuable and this can be leveraged by Reliance
Jio to further increase the demand of the product among the customers.
Theme 12: On a scale of 1-5, 5 being the highest, how satisfied are you with
the services of Jio?
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Theme 13: On an average, how much do you spend on the Reliance Jio sim
per month?
Interpretation – The above data shows that 80% of the users spend less than Rs.
300 on their Reliance Jio sim. This is also partly because of the reason that Jio offers
its services at low prices to its customers. As Jio is attracting more and more
customers and gaining market share, it can look to increase its ARPU (Average
Revenue per user) in the near future. This will help it in becoming a profit-making
business as opposed to a loss-making unit that Jio is now.
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Conclusion
Reliance Jio has shown why India is considered as a price sensitive market. Jio
backed by India’s biggest entity completely changed the game within five years, and
that’s huge considering the size of Indian market, over a billion connections. Based on
this report, we were able to see the strategy that was adopted by Reliance Jio, the
strategy of Market Penetration. Jio came with deep pockets and innovative
technologies, and the decision to offer its services for free was well worth it. The strong
backing of Reliance helped Jio not just financially but also the brand value of Reliance
helped Jio in its customer acquisition strategy thanks to the brand image that Reliance
enjoys in India. Today, Jio has occupied the top spot in the telecom market and is
expanding to broadband, smartphones, cloud, and more. These next gen technologies
would enable Jio create a digital ecosystem that can be enjoyed by millions of India
thanks to its affordability and accessibility. With the coming transition towards 5G, the
opportunities are vast for Jio and given the strong position Jio currently enjoys in the
market couple with its strong partnerships around the world, Jio has a lot to offer and
now stage is set for Jio, to lead India in the digital revolution of the next decade.
The journey towards this won’t be easy though, there are still some issues that Jio
need to tackle, especially the quality of its network. Jio is not the best when it comes
to internet speeds or connectivity and considering the fact that Jio has been foc using
on cost rather than quality, its future products including Jio Phone Next (coming this
Diwali), 5G services, etc. need to prove themselves to the market that affordability
doesn’t mean compromise on quality. Also, the increased competition from Bharti
Airtel in the telecom segment and the launch of satellite broadband from the biggest
global peers could bring new challenges to Jio’s portfolio.
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Recommendations
Based on the research done and data gathered, future prospects for Reliance Jio
seem to be pretty positive. Telecom sector in India has reached a stage where there
are great chances that a duopoly might exist whereby Vodafone Idea would exit the
market. This might be good from the perspective of firms but a duopoly ill eave less
choice with consumers and thus, competition in the industry will be hampered.
As mentioned in the opportunities section in the previous slide, Reliance Jio has
various positive future prospects that it can seize to grow itself. We have come up
with the following recommendations for Jio:
➢ Main focus must be on research and development as this is quite crucial area
where proper research can assist a lot in the introduction of the latest services
and in turn it can become one of the main reason behind success of the firm
in the market.
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References
1. https://www.ibef.org/industry/telecommunications.aspx
2. Statista
3. DataMonitor
4. The Researchers Hub
5. Crisil Reports
6. ACE Analyser
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