Source By: www.livemint.com
In West Delhi’s Karol Bagh Digital Express outlet, customers queued up as early as 5am on Tuesday. Entry was restricted at the store and customers were given slips with their application number written on them.
Inundated with applications for new connections, Reliance Digital stores in Kolkata are issuing new SIM cards only by prior appointment. “There’s already a queue and you will have to wait for 3-4 days because only a limited number of SIM cards are being handed out by each store every day,” said Sneha Dutta, a communications professional in Kolkata, who wanted to get a new connection on Tuesday.
People are queuing up outside Reliance Digital stores from around 8am, two hours prior to opening, only to get an appointment, following which you are required to download a code from the Jio app, she added.
Mukesh Ambani’s aggressive push of Jio has indeed taken the market by storm. With tariff plans around ultra-cheap data and free voice calls, RIL has managed to put its rivals on a back foot but as they regroup and devise strategies to counter Jio’s onslaught, Ambani’s firm is saddled with the problem of plenty, a happy situation to be in, some experts said.
The company has a target to acquire 100 million customers in the shortest possible time and cover 90% of the population by March 2017.
A Reliance Digital store employee in Chennai said, on the condition of anonymity, that the store has run out of stock due to heavy demand.
“Some dealers have purchased the SIM cards in bulk and are selling it,” he said.
M. Mohan, a Chennai resident, who did not get a Jio SIM even after waiting in a long queue for hours on Tuesday, said, “Reliance stores have run out of stock. But some local shops are selling it for Rs200 or more.”
Initially, these SIM cards were to be sold through Digital Xpress Mini stores and Jio Centres. But to meet the increase in demand, even smaller shops were allowed to sell the SIMs. “Some of these shops are selling the SIMs for Rs50-100 when it is supposed to be sold free of cost,” said an RIL official, on the condition of anonymity.
Mint could not verify these claims independently.
When asked about the availability of the SIM cards at the Karol Bagh store, a manager said, “Please come tomorrow at 6am along with your Aadhar card and line up. Once the store opens around 10am, number slips will be distributed to the first 100 people as we are unable to activate more than 100 SIMs in a day.”
Test
0 comments:
Post a Comment