Bharti Airtel tops Reliance Jio on active user base for first time in November

Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. remained India’s largest telecom operator by active subscribers for the fifth month in a row even as peer Bharti Airtel Ltd. added more regularly paying users than it for the first time in five months.

The Sunil Mittal-controlled telecom firm added as many as 17.9 lakh active subscribers in November, compared to its one-year average of 22.2 lakh, data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India with a lag showed. Reliance Jio gained 11.4 lakh such users, compared with its one-year average of 32.6 lakh.

Vodafone Idea Ltd., however, continued to lose active subscribers. As many as 27.5 lakh users migrated out of its network in November compared with 7.5 lakh in September and 14.1 in October. Its one-year average subscriber loss stood at 21.4 lakh.

Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio’s active subscriber base grew 0.52% and 0.32% respectively over the preceding month whereas Vodafone Idea’s active subscriber share fell 1.17%.

Active subscriber base
• Bharti Airtel: 34.79 crore.
• Vodafone Idea: 23.16 crore.
• Reliance Jio: 35.96 crore.

Active subscriber market share

Bharti Airtel’s active subscriber market share improved by 18 basis points in November. Reliance Jio has managed to improve on this count since March 2021. On the other hand, Vodafone Idea continues to lose its active market share.

Gross subscriber addition
The telecom industry gained 12 lakh gross subscribers in the month of November 2021. The industry gained subscribers for the second straight month after losing subscribers in the months of August and September.

Reliance Jio gained 20.19 lakh users followed by Bharti Airtel’s 13.18 lakh subscribers. Vodafone Idea lost 18.97 lakh subscribers, compared with its annual average monthly subscriber outgo of 19.8 lakh.

Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel’s gross subscriber base rose 0.47% and 0.37% over the preceding month, respectively. Vodafone Idea’s gross subscriber base fell 0.71% month-on-month.

Gross subscriber base
• Bharti Airtel: 35.53 crore.
• Vodafone Idea: 26.71 crore.
• Reliance Jio: 42.86 crore.

Industry active subscribers

Inactive subscribers

Bharti Airtel’s inactive user count narrowed in November after widening in the preceding two months. Reliance Jio’s inactive subscriber base widened in November after narrowing since August 2021. On the other hand, Vodafone Idea’s inactive subscribers rose for the second-straight month.

BloombergQuint