New Delhi, March 26: Much to the disappointment of a billion customers, the Jio Prime membership that gave additional data, calling, and app benefits will end on March 31. Once the membership ends, all the facility that users have been enjoying under the Prime membership will now come to an end this month. However, the company has not come out with any new plan or offer to replace its Jio Prime benefits.

Jio has over than 160 million customers now and around 80% of these avail benefits under the Jio Prime membership. The first membership plan under Jio Prime launched in September 2016 which gave three-month free services till December 2017. But since Jio didn’t garner many customers, the Prime membership was extended for another three months – until March 31, 2017. The services included unlimited calls, unlimited data at 1GB per day for 3 months, unlimited SMS and a wide range of other services.

New entrant Jio, on September 5, 2016 created a storm in the telecom sector by announcing disruptive offers. Mukesh Ambani-led Jio forced incumbent telcos like as Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular, and BSNL to dole out more than what they had been offering their tariff plans. As part of its customer offers, Jio has revolutionized the Indian telecom landscape by making voice calls for Jio customers absolutely free, across India, to any network, and always. Jio makes India the highest quality, most affordable data market in the world so that every Indian can avail the internet connectivity.

“Jio will bring transformational changes in the Indian digital services space to enable the vision of Digital India for 1.2 billion Indians and propel India into global leadership in digital economy. It has created an eco-system comprising network, devices, applications and content, service experience and affordable tariffs for everyone to live the Jio Digital Life”, Jio had said in its release.

To recall, the Jio Prime subscription that cost Rs 99 for a year gave additional data and free access to Jio apps under the same tariff plans as for the regular customers who would otherwise get less data. Jio is likely to come out with another offer before the end of the Jio Prime subscription. However, it is not clear what offer would that be, but seeing Jio’s record, the Jio Prime subscription could be further extended with the same fee of Rs 99 for a year.  Moreover, it is likely that Jio will renew its tariff plans and announce cheap plans to retain all its users even after Jio Prime membership ends.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 26, 2018 08:48 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).