Vodafone Idea partners startups to launch jobs & education offering for youth of ‘Bharat’, Telecom News, ET Telecom

NEW DELHI: Vodafone Idea will offer a job and education platform – Vi Jobs & Education – for the youth in partnership with three homegrown startups – Apna, Enguru, and Pariksha – as the loss-making telco strives to increase subscriber stickiness and fend off bigger rivals Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel.

“Primarily targeted towards the large prepaid user base in India, Vi Jobs & Education on the Vi App offers a one stop solution for youth to search for jobs, improve spoken English skills and excel in government employment exams, empowering them to fulfil their career dreams,” the telco said in a statement Wednesday.

Loss-making Vodafone Idea has been losing subscribers rapidly, mainly to market leader Jio, and ended January with just over 265 million users.

In January 2021, Mukesh Ambani-led Jio’s active user market share widened by 345 basis points (bps) to 36.6% while that of Vodafone Idea plunged by an almost identical 346 bps to 22.7%, an analysis of latest telco subscriber data collated by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) shows.

One basis point is 0.01%.

Second-largest telco, Bharti Airtel’s active user market share has grown by 46 bps in the same period to 34.8%.

But Vodafone Idea is hoping to stem subscriber losses as it attempts to turn around its operations, backed by the government’s relief package.

Vi, through its new digital offering, is targeting a demographic population of 200 million youth residing in ‘Bharat,’ Avneesh Khosla, chief marketing officer (CMO), Vodafone Idea, said in the statement.

“The relevance of digital skills and fluency in spoken English has become more pronounced for today’s youth. Further, government employment remains a top choice for a large part of this segment, particularly for those coming from tier 2 & 3 cities,” Khosla said. “Based on these insights, we have curated the Vi Jobs & Education proposition in partnership with Apna, Enguru and Pariksha”.

The new digital offering by Vodafone Idea comes close on the heels of the launch of Vi Games that the telco has launched in partnership with Nazara Technologies with the objective of monetising Vi’s large prepaid user base.Vi said the partnership with jobs platform Apna will ensure priority access to the telco’s customers free of cost, in addition to offering hyperlocal job opportunities and more.

The tie-up with Enguru, an English learning platform, will offer a fortnight of live interactive classes on a trial basis to Vi customers, after which content will be available with a 15-25% discount on paid plans.

Vodafone Idea, together with Pariksha, will offer government exam practice content to the carrier’s customers with features such as unlimited mock tests for a limited period.