Reliance Jio is right on the path of among those products, which created history as far as demands in their launching days is concerned. In a way, the product from Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries limited (RIl) is only creating another hysteric wave of ‘Kar lo Dunia Mutthi Me’ during undivided regime of RIl over a decade ago. There is nothing new in it.
But what a poster at retail shop says is something new. “Jio SIM is not available. Don’t know where it is. Please contact Mukesh Ambani Ji for further details!”
“It was exciting for a couple of days. Then it turned terrific. Now it is just horrific. I wish I couldn’t have signed every page of those odd 40 pages to get authorised to sell a Reliance Jio SIM! Black-marketers might be making money from it, but authorised dealers like us are getting 40-50 queries everyday asking for the SIM. No one has come to even ask anything from company. The person who came to make an authorised dealer with five initial SIMs didn’t return after that. This is why I wrote this,” said Pradip Kumar Sinha, an authorised dealer of Reliance Jio SIM at Kokar.
In probably only consumer market in the world where people keep searching something cheap as well as best, two difficult things altogether. Though not as hysteric as what kept on appearing across USA and other parts of the world right before launch of Apple iPhones, the Reliance Jio has been witnessing long queues everyday in front of Reliance Digital stores and those authorised to sell the SIM.
However, getting a Jio SIM, at least in tear-2 town like Ranchi is more difficult than anticipated. Youngsters can easily be found waiting outside an authorised store in queue for a SIM. Aspirants are said to have heated arguments with retailers at a number of times. A sales boy said that he had countered couple of customers coming with so called ‘influences’ to get a SIM.
“Those who get one come out happier than the one who might have got a blacked ticket of the first show ticket of Bollywood blockbuster ‘Dilwale Dulhania le Jayenge’ 20 years ago. They are actually creating artificial shortage, because either they are unable to provide as much free data as they promised, or they want lesser people to use free data,” said one Sushil Kumar, a Jio SIM aspirant outside a Reliance Digital Store.
“Unlimited 4G Data this year, unlimited voice calls added with unlimited 4G data thereafter on certain packages and much more are something that any data-hungry youngster could fall for. The irony is that so much hope and promises have brought a new class of opportunity-searching middlemen in place. I have come to know that a Jio SIM is available on same day if you are ready to pay anywhere between Rs200-500,” said dejected Sinha.
However, the real phase of tests is waiting for the company from very first day of the next year, when freebies on Jio SIM are going to disappear. “The company is already fighting with its competitors on the issue of voice call interjection point.
Unlimited voice call to any destination in country on any network is not a child’s play. The company needs to ensure demand of SIM at first place, and win the hearts of consumers at least on data part, because it has to fight with no one as far as providing data is concerned,” said SK Singh, a business and telecom expert.