Reliance Jio crosses 200 mn subscribers mark in less than 2 yrs

Reliance Jio crosses 200 mn subscribers mark in less than 2 yrs

Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio has crossed the 200 million subscribers mark in less than 2 yrs. It was launched way back in September 2016. With fast customer addition, it has achieved 200 mn mark faster than other telecom operators. With over 200 million subscriber base, Reliance Jio is now at the fourth position in India’s telecom industry. So far, Airtel dominates the market with 309 million customers followed by Vodafone, which has 222 million subscribers. Idea Cellular has 217-million user base.

Reliance Jio entered the highly-competitive telecom sector two years ago with a six-month promotional offer of free voice and data – a strategy that helped the company mobilise millions of users. Jio crossed 50 million subscribers in just 83 days and 100 million subscribers in 170 days. As per a report by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Reliance Jio in March added more than 9.4 million subscribers while Bharti Airtel had subscriber addition of 8.4 million. Reliance Jio’s rivals Idea Cellular and Vodafone India added over 9.1 million and 5.6 million subscribers respectively.

Reliance Jio with such aggressive addition of subscribers took their market share from 13.08 per cent in November to 15.7 per cent in March. Bharti Airtel has a market share of 25.7 per cent (up from 25.57 per cent) whereas Vodafone India has a market share of 18.82 per cent (up from 18.76 per cent). Idea registered a market share of 17.85 per cent, up from 17.47 per cent.

While Bharti Airtel still commands the highest market share, it will soon be overtaken by the new entity Vodafone Idea Ltd. Vodafone and Idea are in the process of merging their businesses, and once the deal gets DoT approval, the new company will have a market share of around 35 per cent. The merged entity will have over 430 million mobile subscribers from Day 1.

In broadband service, Reliance ranks first among the top five telecom players. Telecom regulator TRAI recently put out a report saying that the top five service providers constituted 97.42 per cent market share of the total broadband subscribers at the end of April 2018. “The service providers were Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd (196.19 million), Bharti Airtel (89.70 million), Vodafone (59.91 million), Idea Cellular (42.41 million) and BSNL (20.75 million),” the report said.

As on 30th April, 2018, the top five Wireless Broadband Service providers were Reliance Jio (196. 19 million), Bharti Airtel (87.51 million), Vodafone (59.90 million), Idea Cellular (42.40 million) and BSNL (11.51 million), TRAI report said. Stay tuned to this page for more updates.