Jio on Its Back, Airtel Refreshes Rs. 168 Recharge to Offer 1GB Daily Data for 28 Days

Jio was in the news this week for adding as many as 11 million new users in the month of July and leapfrogging Vodafone and Idea in terms of market share. This leaves Jio behind just Airtel in the Indian telecom sector, though the newly formed Vodafone Idea Limited (VIL) with Vodafone and Idea combined still has more total users than both the operators. And with Jio inching closer to its position as the biggest standalone telecom operator, Airtel has reportedly refreshed its Rs. 168 prepaid pack for select subscribers in the Delhi and Andhra Pradesh & Telangana telecom circles. The revised Rs. 168 Airtel recharge now offers 1GB of 2G/ 3G/ 4G data per day, 100 SMS messages per day, and unlimited voice calls (local, STD, and roaming). Validity of the pack is 28 days, giving the user total data benefits of up to 28GB. As per a report, Airtel is also offering free subscription to its Hello Tunes caller tune service that will be applicable only for the validity period.

This development comes to us via a report by Telecom Talk. Notably, Gadgets 360 has not been able to independently verify the claim, and Airtel's website only reflects the pack's previous benefits that include a total of 1GB 2G/ 3G/ 4G data, 100 SMS messages per day, unlimited voice calling, and free subscription to Hello Tunes with a validity of 20 days.

Late last month, Vodafone had unveiled a competing recharge pack priced at Rs. 159. This pack offers its prepaid subscribers with 1GB 2G/ 3G/ 4G of data per day, 100 SMS messages per day, and unlimited voice calling with a 250-minute daily and 1,000-minute weekly limit. Even this pack is valid only in Delhi, Mumbai, Gujarat, Chennai, and Andhra circles.

Earlier this week, Airtel had unveiled five new recharge packs in its suite, priced between Rs. 178 and Rs. 559. All of these packs offer subscribers with unlimited voice calling, SMS benefits, and certain high-speed data benefits. Notably, all these packs are widely available across multiple telecom circles.

Comparatively, Jio has a Rs. 149 recharge pack that comes with 1.5GB of 4G data per day, unlimited voice calling, and 100 SMS messages per day, with a validity of 28 days. This pack is priced lower and offers more benefits compared to the Airtel Rs. 168 pack.