CSPs
Stiff competition among telcos and concerted focus on market share
Mobile number portability (MNP) requests were lower m-o-m, but still remained at elevated levels in April 2023, reveals the recently released TRAI report on April 2023 subscribers.
“This suggests stiff competition in the sector and focus on market share gains. Higher levels of MNP could also be due to VIL users porting out to experience 5G on Bharti or Jio. This is likely to keep churn levels elevated and drive up S&M costs for telcos.
Jio’s active subscriber leadership and Bharti’s 3G/4G market share gains bode well for tariff hikes. Furthermore, Vi’s 3G/4G subscriber losses indicate pressure on its 4G subscriber base and could result in accelerated market share shifts towards Jio/Bharti over the next few months,” said Jeffereis.
Over the last four months, Jio’s active subscriber additions at 16.3 million have been 3x of Bharti’s 5.3 million subscriber additions. Additionally, Bharti continues to gain market share among 3G/4G subscribers.
Vi’s subscribers have declined for the twenty-fifth month in a row in April with even 4G users switching to rival operators’ brand new 5G network.
“VIL’s 4G subscriber losses in April 2023 were the second-highest 4G subscriber losses in two years, and this is the second time that VIL has lost 4G subscribers in the last three months. This suggests that 5G rollouts by Bharti and Jio are putting pressure on VIL’s 4G subscriber base,” added Jefferies.
Reliance Jio added over 3 million subscribers month-on-month, followed by Bharti (1 lakh), while VIL and BSNL/MTNL saw declines of about 3 million and 1 million, respectively. Total industry subscribers were 114.4 crore, a decline of 8 lakh month-on-month.
Subscriber market share for Vi declined by 25 bps to 20 per cent, while it improved marginally for RJio to 38 per cent (gain of 29 bp m-o-m) and remained stable for Bharti Airtel (32 per cent). Net subscriber additions for RJio in April 2023 were broad-based across rural and urban as well as across circles, while they were largely concentrated in Circle A/C for Bharti Airtel.
CT Bureau
You must be logged in to post a comment Login