SWOT Analysis of Jio 

v STRENGHTS (S):

Strengths are defined as what each business does best in its gamut of operation which can give it an upper hand over its competitors.

The following are the strengths of Reliance Jio:

 

·        Strongest Customer Acquisition Strategy –As the brand offered their services for free for 3-6 months to all their users. Millions of users started using Reliance Jio and resulted in one of the best customer acquisition strategy in the history of telecom.

·        Strong customer base – In the first 170 days of its launch, Jio gained 100 million subscribers. This has also made Reliance Jio India’s largest Internet Service Provider.

·        Technology – Jio currently uses the latest 4 G LTE technology which is one of the world’s best technologies for the future. This is supported by Voice over LTE which makes it scalable and supportive of 5G and 6 G technologies which are expected to be the future in wireless communication.

·        Strong backing of parent company Reliance Industries: Jio is backed up by its parent company Reliance Industries which has  a credible brand as it has high trust amongst customers. This acts as a core strength.

·        Brand Management – One cannot ignore the brand management strategies of Jio. Promotional activities including beneficial offers and popular brand ambassadors like Shahrukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan have helped in creating awareness among general public.

·        Fast and wide network – Reliance Jio has a presence in all 22 telecom circles in India and is known to be a robust and fast network with zero connectivity issues.

·        Multiple offerings under a single name – Reliance Jio offers a variety of services like movies, games, shopping, chats, and messenger etc. giving the customer a lot of options to choose from.

v WEAKNESSES (W):

 Weaknesses are used to refer to areas where the business or the brand needs improvement.

Some of the key weaknesses of Reliance Jio are: 

·        Late entry into the market: Reliance Jio entered the market with already established service providers like Airtel and Vodafone who had occupied a place in the minds of the customer.

·        Activation Issues – Reliance Jio faced numerous gestation issues owing to not being able to contain the huge volumes of customers it had acquired. On such was delays in SIM Card activation during the period that followed its launch.

·        Pricing Controversies – Jio was criticised because it charged beyond what was ethical to penetrate into the market and this agitated allegations like corruption and money laundering against them.

·        Too many freebies – Reliance Jio currently offers many services for free and this was one reason for share increase in sales. However, the company may not be able to afford all of them in the long run which may affect the business negatively.

·        Weak Data connection – The data connection is many times poor from Reliance Jio and the range is less causing slower loading speeds in selected regions.

 

v OPPORTUNITIES (O):

Opportunities refer to those avenues in the environment that surrounds the business on which it can capitalize to increase its returns.

Some of the opportunities include: 

• Future driven technology – Reliance Jio uses VoLTE 4G network which is scalable to accommodate 5G and 6G technologies. This offers numerous avenues to Jio or future expansion of bandwidth.
• Apps – Reliance Jio has VoLTE which has a lot of scope in terms of bandwidth. Thus they can offer apps to customers which are chargeable or even free initially and pay per use later.

• Competitive Pricing Strategies – As Reliance Jio is a low-cost Internet service provider and mobile operator, this can be used as a positioning to target more markets and grow their market share since most of their competitors’ cannot afford their prices.
• Expansion to other countries – Currently Reliance Jio is operational only in India. There is, however, a lot of scope for expansion to foreign countries at least in the neighbouring regions.

v THREATS (T):

Threats are those factors in the environment which can be detrimental to the growth of the business.

Some of the threats include:

•Risk of loss of customers due to Removal of free services  – Customers prefer Jio primarily because of the low prices that they offer. As soon as Jio plans on increasing its prices they may lose customers.  Once the free services are removed there may be a drop in sales for the company.

•Criticism and negative image due to Poor Code of ethics –   Reliance Jio has been embroiled in a lot of controversies from the time it was started because of the many of the strategies adopted by it such as the low pricing, free bandwidth and market penetration strategies. These  have been showcased as unethical and this may affect the goodwill of the business in the long run. These have resulted in a negative brand image for the company.

Information reference: 

https://www.marketing91.com/swot-analysis-of-reliance-jio/

 by,
Humaira Kazi.