Reliance Jio crosses Airtel in active users in January 2023

According to analysts, Reliance Jio added the most active mobile users among the top Indian telcos in January 2023, which was aided by significant growth in Rajasthan, Maharashtra, and Madhya Pradesh. They continued by saying that this demonstrated the Mukesh Ambani-led telco is attracting high-caliber clients and is not being harmed by SIM consolidation in the industry.

According to the most recent customer data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), Reliance Jio added 3.5 million active users in January, bringing its total active user base to 394 million.

Competitor Bharti Airtel added active users at a steady but slower rate of 1.3 million, bringing its total number of active users in January to 366 million. Vodafone Idea’s base fell to 209 million after it lost another 0.5 million active users.

The number of subscribers actively using a mobile network is reflected in the active, or visitor location register (VLR), data released by Trai each month. With a 38.5% share of the active user market in January compared to Airtel’s 35.7%, Relaince Jio increased its lead over the Sunil Mittal-owned telco. The active user share for loss-making Vi decreased by a few decimal places to 20.4%.

Reliance Jio and Airtel’s net gains helped the overall active user base in the telecom sector increase by about 4 million, month over month, to 1025 million.

After abruptly raising base prepaid rates by 57% in Odisha and Haryana in November and later extending the move nationally to all 22 circles, Airtel’s active user additions, however, have slowed down in January.

When the full effect of the more expensive recharge cycle sets in, ICICI Securities anticipates that Airtel will experience higher levels of churn among active users in the upcoming months.

According to J M Financial, the decline in Vi’s active user base is a continuation of the recent downward trend caused by churn in the lower average revenue per user (ARPU) segments, particularly following base prepaid tariff increases the telco had implemented back in July/November 2021.

With a 2.8 million increase in wireless broadband users in January 2023, Airtel maintained its lead in the market. Reliance Jio and Vi came in second and third, with 1.7 million and 1.1 million additional users, respectively.

However, Reliance Jio continued to dominate the wired broadband market. In January, it added 0.19 million users to its JioFibre service, bringing the total number of people using fixed broadband to 7.8 million.

This user base increased by 0.14 million, bringing Airtel’s total number of wired broadband subscribers to 5.9 million. State-run BSNL added fewer subscribers (0.07 million), maintaining its third-place ranking with 4.2 million subscribers, highlighting its inability to effectively compete with Jio and Airtel.

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