Reliance Jio gets the better of Airtel, adds 94 lakh new users in March

In a bid to capture the major market share, teleco companies in India have been rolling out new plans. These plans, available at cheap rates, have added users for Bharti Aritel, Vodafone India, and Idea Cellular.  However, Reliance Jio has added the highest number of subscribers in March.

As per a report by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. added more than 94 lakh subscribers while Bharti Airtel Ltd had subscriber addition of 84 lakh. Jio rivals Idea Cellular and Vodafone India added over 91 lakh and 56 lakh subscribers respectively.

The total wireless subscribers also saw an increase from 115.6 crore customers in February to 118.3 million customers in March.

Reliance Jio with this handsome addition of subscribers have taken their market share to 15.7% from 13.08% in November. Bharti Airtel has a market share of 25.7% (up from 25.57%) whereas Vodafone India has a market share of 18.82% (up from 18.76%). Idea registered a market share of 17.85% (up from 17.47%). Other telecom companies Aircel, Tata Teleservices, Telenor India and Reliance Communications saw their customers porting out of their services.

Bharti Airtel still has India's highest number of customers with 304.19 million while Jio's subscriber base has expanded to 186.56 million. Vodafone has also seen an expansion in its subscriber base to 222.69 million customers. Vodafone is India's second biggest teleco. Idea Cellular's subscribers have also grown to 211.2 million, putting it at No. 3.

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has seen a slight increase in its market share from 9.43% last month to 9.44%, courtesy its customer additions of 2.56 million in March.

Many telecos have lost their customers as well. Aircel saw a loss of 4.77 million customers while Tata Teleservices lost 2.05 million users. Similarly, Telenor India lost 1.3 million customers. Reliance RCom, which is led by Anil Ambani saw over 0.49 million users opting out of the service in March. This could have been due to the announcement last October by RComm about switching off its 2G and 3G wireless operations.

According to data collected by the telecom regulator, the total base of phone subscribers rose from 1,179,83 million in end-February to 1,206.22 million in end-March. This shows a 2.24% monthly growth.