- Reliance Jio had a subscriber base of 331.3 million by June 2019.
- Vodafone Idea merger has recently reported a decline in its customer base to 320 million.
- Jio posted revenues of ₹11,679 crore in the June quarter.
It has already been three years since the start of its commercial operations, Reliance Jio has become the country’s largest telecom operator with a subscriber base of more than 331.3 million, surpassing Vodafone-Idea Merger which on July 26 reported a decline in its user base to 320 million by June 2019.
Earlier this month Jio had grabbed the 2nd position beating the Airtel in terms of subscriber count. Read the reason here: Airtel loses rural subscribers after 35-a-month recharge, Jio benefits
Jio‘s deep pockets and amazing offers are the reasons:
According to the recent financial results reported by Reliance Industries last week, its telecom subsidiary Reliance Jio had a user base of a whopping 331.3 million subscribers by June 2019.
Launched just three years ago, Jio’s rapid growth has been fuelled by more than a whopping $36 billion in spending. Deep pockets have tremendously helped the company lead intense competition that has driven India’s data tariffs to the lowest in the world. Bruised by the price war, other firms have either been forced to shut down or combine with other players, such as the local unit of Vodafone Group Plc that merged with Idea Cellular Ltd.
The Subsequent fall of Vodafone-Idea:
On Friday, Vodafone Idea reported a decline in its customer base to 320 million in the first quarter of 2019-20 from 334.1 million in the March quarter.
Our subscriber base declined to 320.0 million from 334.1 million in the fourth quarter of the financial year 2019 primarily due to customer turn down following the introduction of ‘service validity vouchers’ in prior quarters,” Vodafone-Idea said in a statement.
Vodafone-Idea merger emerged as the largest telecom operator with more than 400 million subscribers when Vodafone India and Idea Cellular completed the merger of the telecom services business.
Monthly validity plan might be the culprit:
However, the merged entity continued to lose subscribers every month and later it wrote off millions of customers, thanks to its monthly minimum recharge plan. After Vodafone Idea rolled rout monthly minimum recharge plans for subscribers to stay on its network, its shrinking subscriber base has led to an improvement in average revenue per user (Arpu) to ₹108 in the June quarter, from ₹104 in the March quarter, ₹89 in December and ₹88 in September.
Reliance Jio ranked second in May, when its market share increased to 27.8 percent, according to data released by the industry regulator TRAI. Vodafone Ideas market share was 33.4% and Bharti Airtel Ltd. had 27.6% of the wireless market. Vodafone-Idea which posted revenue of 11,269.9 crores, lags behind Jio which posted revenues of ₹11,679 crore in the June quarter. Its other rival, Bharti Airtel, will announce its results on 1 August.
Most of Asia’s largest wireless carriers are in the way of testing 5G networks, with plans to introduce them commercially in 2020.
India Is Home To World’s 2nd Largest Internet User Base, Thanks To Jio
