Reliance Jio adds most active subscribers in July

Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. surpassed Bharti Airtel Ltd. as India’s largest telecom operator by active users for the first time this year.

The Mukesh Ambani-controlled telecom operator added as many as 61.4 lakh active subscribers in July, compared to its six-month average accretion of 20.7 lakh, according to data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.

On the other hand, Bharti Airtel added 23.2 lakh active subscribers compared to its six-month average subscriber accretion of 24.7 lakh.

Vodafone Idea Ltd. continued to lose active subscribers, but reduced the churn to 33.3 lakh in July. The numbers stood at 70.4 lakh and 48.8 lakh in May and June, respectively.

The active subscriber base of Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel rose 1.8% and 0.7%, respectively over the preceding month, whereas Vodafone Idea’s fell 1.38%.

Active subscriber base:

• Bharti Airtel: 34.60 crore.
• Vodafone Idea: 23.84 crore.
• Reliance Jio: 34.65 crore.

Active subscriber market share
Bharti Airtel’s active subscriber market share improved by eight basis points in July over the preceding month.

After deteriorating in January and February, Reliance Jio witnessed an improvement on this count since March, while Vodafone Idea continued to lose its share.

Gross user addition
The telecom industry gained 60.1 lakh gross subscribers in July—the highest in four months. Reliance Jio gained 3.4 times more subscribers than Bharti Airtel. The Mukesh Ambani-controlled operator added more such users than Bharti Airtel for the sixth straight month.

Vodafone Idea’s gross subscriber loss narrowed in July, losing 14.3 lakh users compared to its one-year average monthly loss of 28.1 lakh.

Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio saw their gross subscriber base rise 0.6% and 1.5% over the preceding month, respectively, in July 2021. Vodafone Idea’s gross subscriber base fell 0.5%.

Gross subscriber base:

• Bharti Airtel: 35.4 crore.
• Vodafone Idea: 27.19 crore.
• Reliance Jio: 44.32 crore.

Industry active subscribers
After declining in May and June, the Indian telecom industry’s active subscribers rose in the month of July. The user count rose 45.5 lakh two months ago compared to net addition in the last six months of 15.6 lakh.

Inactive subscribers
Bharti Airtel’s inactive user count narrows in July after widening in the preceding two months, while Reliance Jio’s inactive subscriber base widened for the seventh month on the trot. Vodafone Idea’s count of non-active users rose for the sixth straight month marginally in July over the preceding month. BloombergQuint