TRAI's report on Subscriber numbers at the end of May'19 is out. The numbers for Top-3 players, which together account for about 90% of the market-share, have progressed on expected lines. Reliance Jio continued to lead the charge with addition of 8.1 million subscribers in May'19. Bharti Airtel lost 1.5 million, while Vodafone Idea lost 5.7 million subscribers during the month.
The bigger news that grabbed the headlines was that Reliance Jio has now overtaken Bharti Airtel to become the No.2 player in the Wireless telecom industry, in terms of Total Subscribers. Reliance Jio's Total Subscriber count has reached 323 million, compared to Bharti Airtel's 320 million at the end of May'19. This is something that was expected to happen sooner or later. Reliance Jio is expected to topple the current No.1, Vodafone Idea, sometime before the end of end of this year.
But if we look at the Active Subscriber base count, i.e. the VLR base of each of these three operators, Bharti Airtel is still very comfortably placed in the No.2 spot, with 320 million active subscribers. It lost 4 million Active subscribers during the month. On the other hand, Vodafone Idea continued to lose Active Subscribers at a faster pace. After the big slump of 26 million in April'19, Vodafone Idea saw it's Active users base drop by another 8 million during May'19. It's lead over Bharti Airtel is now just 14 million.
At the same time, Reliance Jio's Active users base increased by a mere 3 million, compared to the 8 million of Gross additions it did. It still trails the Top-2 by a good margin, with an Active subscribers base of 268 million. If the current trend continues for a few more months, Bharti Airtel will become the No.1 player toppling Vodafone Idea, maybe in another 2 or 3 months, well before Reliance Jio catches up with these 2 and overtake them.
Vodafone Idea seriously needs to ramp up it's Integrated network rollout to more circles and simultaneously start with wider marketing campaign. Since it is currently focusing on the Network rollout part, it has stopped Advertising it's brand & services on a large scale. This is clearly hurting the operator's numbers month after month. The operator is said to have completed the Integrated network rollout, which is expected to have much larger Capacity & Speed, in about 10 circles. Vodafone Idea is expected to complete the rollout across the country by the end of this year.
Bharti Airtel has been Advertising it's brand & services very aggressively, which is helping it gain 4G subscribers month after month, though at a pace slower than Reliance Jio. Industry reports suggest that a major portion of Reliance Jio's subscriber additions are happening for the Jio Phone subscribers, which are actually low-revenue subscribers.
We will get more details on each operator's performance in their Quarterly Results presentations this month.
The bigger news that grabbed the headlines was that Reliance Jio has now overtaken Bharti Airtel to become the No.2 player in the Wireless telecom industry, in terms of Total Subscribers. Reliance Jio's Total Subscriber count has reached 323 million, compared to Bharti Airtel's 320 million at the end of May'19. This is something that was expected to happen sooner or later. Reliance Jio is expected to topple the current No.1, Vodafone Idea, sometime before the end of end of this year.
At the same time, Reliance Jio's Active users base increased by a mere 3 million, compared to the 8 million of Gross additions it did. It still trails the Top-2 by a good margin, with an Active subscribers base of 268 million. If the current trend continues for a few more months, Bharti Airtel will become the No.1 player toppling Vodafone Idea, maybe in another 2 or 3 months, well before Reliance Jio catches up with these 2 and overtake them.
Vodafone Idea seriously needs to ramp up it's Integrated network rollout to more circles and simultaneously start with wider marketing campaign. Since it is currently focusing on the Network rollout part, it has stopped Advertising it's brand & services on a large scale. This is clearly hurting the operator's numbers month after month. The operator is said to have completed the Integrated network rollout, which is expected to have much larger Capacity & Speed, in about 10 circles. Vodafone Idea is expected to complete the rollout across the country by the end of this year.
Bharti Airtel has been Advertising it's brand & services very aggressively, which is helping it gain 4G subscribers month after month, though at a pace slower than Reliance Jio. Industry reports suggest that a major portion of Reliance Jio's subscriber additions are happening for the Jio Phone subscribers, which are actually low-revenue subscribers.
We will get more details on each operator's performance in their Quarterly Results presentations this month.
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