This is what Reliance Jio users will do once free voice, data offer expires in March

New Delhi: Free or not free, Reliance Jio services have found favour with most of the subscribers who are using it in the free period. As per a survey by Bank of America Merrill Lynch, 85 percent of Jio subscribers availing the services are likely to continue even as the telecom company goes paid for its data services from April 1.

Jio extended its free call and data services with another promotional scheme Happy New Year Offer, which provides users with free 4G data, voice calls, and its bouquet of apps from December 4 to March 31 2017.

Here are the key takeaways of the BofA survey:

Around 67 percent of Reliance Jio subscribers owuld use Jio as a secondary SIM, Only 18 percent out of those surveyed said that Jio would be the primary connection.

About 57 percent of the Jio users would not mind shelling out Rs 400-500 as a trade off for continued quality services.

About 24 percent of the respondents said they have not tested Jio. The reasons cited were mainly handset incompatibility and long queues for buying a SIM.

The survey showed that Bharti Airtel had the most satisfied customers, at 97.7 percent against 89 percent for smaller telcom companies.

Only 17 percent of Bharti Airtel customers were the least interested in Jio as a primary SIM if the quality was good, while it was 41 percent for smaller service providers. 

Smaller service providers like Reliance Communications are the most vulnerable as most of their connections are secondary for their customers, who may shift to Jio, BoFA-ML said.