Reliance Jio is one of India’s largest network providers whose marketing and business

strategy took the world by storm. It has played a significant impact on revolutionizing
India’s digital ecosystem. Started operating in the year 2016 as a telecommunication
provider, it gained more than 50 million subscribers in exactly 83 days of launch.
Focused on providing India with the ability of the digital revolution – to attach everyone
by providing the highest quality of connectivity at the most affordable price.
The following case study on Reliance Jio is prepared by Virtual Interns as a task during
the internship period. We at IIDE believe in providing a real-world practical learning
experience to our students so that they are industry-ready.
Now that you know about us, let’s continue this case study by understanding more
about Jio as a company.

About Reliance Jio

Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited popularly known as Jio is India’s largest
telecommunication company, founded by Mukesh Ambani. The company was
registered in the year 2007 as Infotel Broadband Services Limited (IBSL) and in the
year 2010 Reliance Industries Limited bought a 95% stake in IBSL. After this IBSL was
renamed to what we know as now Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited.
The company rolled out for a commercial launch in September 2016 and now has a full
of a life subscriber base of 398.31 million as per the most recent report issued by TRAI
(Telecom Regulatory Authority of India)
It is considered to have brought about a revolution in the digital world by providing the
cheapest 4G data and free voice call plans. Jio has truly transformed the lives of
millions of Indians.
Now that you know a thing or two about Jio, let’s now understand its competitors in the
coming section.

Reliance Jio’s Competitors

Before the rollout of Jio, there existed more than 10 Telecom companies in the industry but after
its arrival, the whole scenario changed. Jio with its cut-throat pricing and latest technology swept
away most of the telecom industries. Companies such as Aircel, MTS, Uninor(Telenor), etc,
couldn’t survive at the pricing offered by Jio. The market was left with then stronger players
such as Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, Idea who are now Jio’s competitors.
As per a report by TRAI, September 2020, Reliance Jio dominated with 35% market
share in terms of the total market share of subscribers, followed by Airtel and Vodafone-
Idea (Vi) with 29% and 26% respectively. BSNL being a Public company was able to
survive the competition and has a 10% market share.
A new market player suddenly dominated all the existing players and the whole
scenario changed and this added to Jio’s advantage.
Now that you’ve understood the competition that Jio faces, let’s understand its business
strategy.

Business Strategy of Reliance Jio

The business strategy of Reliance Jio is one of the biggest reasons for its success. The use of
the AARRR strategy to penetrate the market adds huge growth to the company. This strategy
includes 5 key components to help a business acquire and retain customers creatively and cost-
effectively.
 Acquisition – After the commercial rollout of Jio in September 2016, Jio offered
free services to its customers for 3 months. This plan worked as the trump card
for Jio to acquire the customers. Within one month, Jio was able to acquire 16
million subscribers.
 Activation – The users were provided with the best experience, which was never
provided by any telecom service provider. The unlimited high-speed, 4G data
with unlimited calling was unimaginable to the customers.
 Retention – Jio didn’t stop here. On the occasion of the new year in 2017, they
extended the free services to the users for another 3 months. Jio became the
first-ever telecom company to provide 6 months of free service to customers. In
just two and a half years into the business, Jio gained more than 300 million
active subscribers. It took more than 19 years for its competitor, Bharti Airtel to
reach such a number. Such was the power of Jio.
 Referral – The customers became its preacher. Jio got more and more business
through positive customer reviews and user experience. This added as a boon to
its tremendous growth.
 Revenue – Slashing the prices to 1/10th the existing cost, Jio got ahead with
revenue, which was the major factor in getting such a leap in the market.
This is how Reliance Jio’s business strategy plays out and thus helping itself in being
ahead of its competitors. Let’s now understand its target audience.

Target Audience of Reliance Jio

Reliance Jio paid interest in providing the best and cheapest Internet data services, so
their target audience became the one’s having SmartPhone, looking for high-speed
internet connection. Not only this they also created a demand for 4G enabled
smartphones as their services could only be availed using that.
Not only is Jio targeting people using smartphones but also the industries which require
the use of digital technology. Bridging gap between customer merchants and the final
consumer.

Digital Marketing Strategy of Reliance Jio

Reliance Jio has a fantastic digital marketing presence across most platforms, all due to
its brilliant strategy and trendy campaigns. It has garnered over 960k followers on
Instagram alone. Moreover, also has a dominating presence on YouTube with 2.36
million subscribers which have their advertisement campaigns even in regional
languages. It also has an active presence on Facebook with 2.5 million followers. On
Twitter, they have about 666k followers which are way lesser than its strongest
competitor. Overall, Youtube and Facebook is their strength but their twitter needs more
improvement.
Reliance Jio has an impressive digital strategy in place. It is now time for us to dig deep
and understand Jio’s digital marketing and social media strategy.

Social Media Competitor Analysis

Reliance Jio faces a tough blow when it comes to Twitter. Airtel India, its biggest rival
has a strong presence with close to 1.2 million followers on Twitter. Recently in the year
2019 when Jio asked its customer to pay charges for calling, Airtel trolled Jio using
#AbTohSahiChuno which went viral. With more than 110k views, 3.2k retweets it was
trending on Twitter.

Digital India, Home Delivered

Reliance Jio came up with an interesting campaign of providing SIM Cards home-
delivered to the customers. Customers didn’t have to take the pain to visit a physical
store to get their SIM Card.

Jio Cheers Cricket

Reliance Jio never missed on leaping when it comes to any active participation of India
in sports. “Jio Cheers Cricket” campaign was rolled out to increase the hype of the
India-Pakistan Match. The campaign was integrated using the Thunderclap tool which
enabled it to reach a massive audience. For more engagement, Jio pushed notification
engagement to their subscribers soon #JioforIndia started trending on Facebook and
Twitter.
 With more than 24.8 million organic reach
 More than 35,000 messages cross platforms

Jio’s Business Strategy Analysis

Reliance is a massive company, and so are the scales of business strategies employed
by the company. We have conducted further research and identified where Reliance
could have improved Jio’s business strategy. So let’s go through the business strategy
of Jio.
 Market entry:
The market entry “strategy” did not work out well, as expectations were high for
Reliance Jio due to its late entry and on the other hand Breaking established and strong
opponents like Airtel and Vodafone with descriptive technology grounded into the hearts
of customers was not less than a “herculean task”.
 Consumer loss:
Withdrawal of free services brought a downfall in its users. The decline of the customer
base for Reliance Jio in 2019 was mainly due to the start of charging customers for
voice calls. According to TRAI, there were almost 87 million inactive users. Anyhow now
it has offered a free voice call around domestic places.
 Customer complaints: 
In December 2019 Reliance Jio made a joint venture with JioMart.
JioMart is an Indian online grocery delivery service. A joint venture means two individual
firms join together to gain positive synergy. Hence both advantages and disadvantages
are supposed to be faced by both firms.
The customers expect different things from joint ventures and when the level of
expertise is not met with the investment it eventually brings downfall with an increase in
disappointments. The JioMart customer faced issues relating to a dissatisfied customer
base, quality of the product, and prepaid orders but not delivered leave a bad
impression when addressed over a social platform like Twitter.
With this our case study comes to an end, so now let us go through a quick conclusion.

Conclusion 
Reliance Jio has a strong presence in the telecom market and shows no sign of bowing
down to its competition any time soon. The expansionary and the growth marketing
strategy enabled Jio to gain such dominance. Furthermore, Jio’s entry into various
newer projects such as Jio Fiber, Jio Postpaid, will lead to a diversified and stronger
control over the market share held by Jio, which is already more than 35%.
Jio has done a great implementation of its influencer strategy as well as its partnership
with famous brands. Overall, Reliance Jio has made the greatest impact on bringing
about the digital revolution in India.
With the digital revolution at hand, IIDE helps in training their students to solve business
problems effectively and efficiently, using the modern techniques and ways of digital
marketing. If you want to learn to create such practical and business-driven solutions,
explore our course offerings and start your journey today.
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