This is second sweetener within a couple of weeks that Jio has announced to attract customers for its paid services. Under the scheme, customers will get back one-time fee of Rs 99 if they recharge using Jio Money.

When the company came out with 'Buy one get one free offer', telecom expert B K Syngal termed it as nervousness of Jio. Now, when it offered another freebee to attract customers, Syngal said, "This was an indication that nervousness has increased."

"You come out with new freebees when you are desperate for acquiring customers. It is obvious that its response for paid services is not good,"said Syngal.

"Another indication that the company is not gettig good response for its paid services is that the incumbent operators have added 15 millioin new subsribers in last three months. If Jio's 100 million new customers had potential to become paid customers, incumbents should have registered a negative growth," said Syngal.

On March 15, we did a survey of about 20 shops and Jio centres in Delhi. Employees at the Jio Centres told us they were hopeful that about 50-60% of the total subscribers would register for prime membership. The shops not owned by Reliance Jio said that only about 30-40% of the free customers would retain their services once it becomes paid.

Within a couple of days a survey from Bernstein, a wall street research and brokerage firm, emerged saying that 98% of existing susbcribers would pay for Jio services.

The new offer by Jio reimposes trust on our survey.

The reason that Syngal gave for not overshelming response of Jio's report was: “Existing high end customers have inertia and they will shift to a competitor only when there are some compelling reasons such as very low quality of their existing Operator or very high quality of competitor or big price difference.”

“The fact that Jio started offering ‘Buy One Get One Offer’ to its customers within a few days of registration for its paid services shows its desperation. It is a clear sign of nervousness.”