New Reliance Jio Conquers More Than Half the Broadband Market Share in Telecom: Report

In a new report filed by India Ratings and Research, it was revealed that Mukesh Ambani led-telco Reliance Jio’s broadband market share has sprung up and crossed the 50% mark. As per the report, while the latest telecom entrant has witnessed massive growth in mobile subscribers, amounting to 21.6% of market share at September end, the telecom operator has also seen equally impressive growth in the broadband subscriber base as well. The rating firm in a release said, “Reliance Jio was able to increase its (broadband) market share to 52% in September 2018, from 43% a year ago, while Bharti Airtel’s broadband share increased to 21%, showcasing a marginal year-on-year growth of 2%.”

Reliance Jio Claims More than 50% Broadband Share

The report also highlighted that the number of broadband subscribers also increased by 51.2% year-on-year to 463.2 million, owing to low data prices and better affordability of smartphones, reasoned the rating agency. Talking about the wireless subscribers of Reliance Jio, the rating agency noted that the company’s subscriber base had grown to capture 21.6% by September 2018, also hinting towards the falling gross revenue of other telecom operators. To recall, the telecom operator had a 20.5% market share back in August, and it stood at 19.1% in the month before that.

The firm further highlighted that the Mukesh Ambani led telco’s subscriber base saw a growth of 5.4% month-on-month, while Jio’s competition Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular witnessed a 0.7%, 1.2% and 1.8% month-on-month decline in the subscriber base, respectively. As per the latest report from Ind-Ra, the success of Reliance Jio can be contributed to its “aggressive pricing and free entertainment applications” which drove customer loyalty.

Other Incumbents Face Declining Revenue

Further, the report revealed that 2.4 million net wireless subscribers were added in the telecom sector led by the rally of Reliance Jio, with most of them coming from Reliance Jio’s own subscriber base. However, due to its aggressive pricing techniques and offerings, the telecom industry as a whole has taken a massive hit with other incumbents like Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea facing declining revenue every month ever since the launch of Jio in September 2016.

However, there was little to waiver the Mukesh Ambani led operator from its path as it stayed on the line and added 13.0 million subscribers in September 2018 and 113.6 million subscribers during the entire period of October 2017-September 2018. On the other hand, rival telcos like Bharti Airtel Limited and Vodafone-Idea Limited each added 61.5 million and 37.5 million active subscribers, respectively, during the same period.