Jio Added 32 Lakh Wireless Users In August, Captures 36.48% Market Share

Racing way ahead of its competitors, telecom operator Reliance Jio added more than 32.8 Lakh subscribers in the month of August 2022. The data was disclosed in the monthly subscriber report released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

Bharti Airtel came a distant second, adding a meagre 3.26 Lakh users during the same month. Meanwhile, Vodafone-Idea continued to shed heavy numbers, losing nearly 20 Lakh subscribers (19,58,353) during the period under review. 

State-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) also lost 5.67 Lakh users while Mahanagar Sanchar Nigam Limited (MTNL) kept steady and lost just 470 subscribers.

A major chunk of user additions for Reliance Jio came from the rural areas of the country. These accounted for 1.7 Mn or more than 52% of the total user additions in the month of August. This could likely be attributed to the renewed push by the telecom operators to expand 4G services in the hinterlands of the country. 

This is likely the result of the INR 6.5 Bn project funded by the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF). Under this, Bharti Airtel is obligated to set up 1,083 mobile towers in Jharkhand and Maharashtra for INR 8.5 Bn while Jio will receive INR 2.8 Bn to deploy 3,696 towers.

Airtel trajectory over the course of the month suffered heavily on account of its urban operations. While it added 5.31 Lakh users from rural India, the exodus of subscribers in the urban parts brought down its total user addition to just 3.26 Lakh.

Jio Continues To Lead

Reliance Jio continued to lead the market, accounting for 36.48% of the total wireless user base in August, up from 36.23% in July 2022. Airtel came a close second with a market share of 31.66% while VI settled at the third place with a market share of 22.03%. 

Net wireless subscriber addition stood around 1.08 Mn. In total, the total number of wireless users in the country grew 0.09% on a monthly basis to 114.91 Cr at the end of August, 2022. 

The total wireless tele-density also grew marginally to 83.27% at the end of August, compared to 83.25% in July. While urban wireless tele-density fell to 129.75% in August from 129.88% in July, rural tele-density witnessed an increase of 0.1% month-on-month (MoM) to 58.22% in August.

Wireline users increased 1.34% MoM to 25.97 Mn in August while the overall wireline tele-density in the country stood at 1.88%. 

State-owned BSNL and MTNL together held 37.48% of the total wireline market, while Jio held 28.31% and Airtel accounted for 23.86% of the total market share.

Telcos also registered 11.35 Mn requests for Mobile Number Portability (MNP) in the month of August. Of these, 6.79 Mn requests were generated from Zone-I while the rest 4.56 Mn requests were received from Zone-II.

Zone -I primarily includes the northern and the western parts of the country while Zone-II includes the southern and the eastern India. 

Telcos Gear Up For 5G

The positive numbers come at a time when the two major players – Jio and Airtel – have been locked in a major tussle to wrest control of the space. While, previously, these two players have been in news for undercutting each other and a major price war, October so far has been somewhat different. 

Earlier this month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched 5G services amid much fanfare. 

At the same time, the Indian government also announced its much awaited draft telecom bill that aims to address lacunae prevailing in the high-stakes telecom space. 

The bill also brought some sliver of cheer to the telecom operators as it proposed a licensing rehome for OTT communication apps such as WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram and others. Telcos have, time and again, called for a licence regime to oversee these apps saying that these OTT players had an undue advantage compared to them. 

Amidst all this, the user additions have brought cheer to these telcos that have been pummelled by the recent splurge on 5G auctions. Essentially, more user additions correspond to higher revenues. In Q1 FY23, Jio reported an average revenue per user (ARPU) of INR 175.7 while Airtel’s ARPU hovered around the INR 183 mark. 

With 5G, the telcos will usher in a new era of competition. But, 4G is largely expected to be an arena where Airtel and Jio will duel. As both scale up 5G deployments, the fight appears to have just about begun.