As per the data published by telecom regulator TRAI this Monday, Reliance Jio emerged itself as the first mobile service provider to cross the 40 crore customer mark in India with a net addition of over 35 lakh subscribers in July amidst the lockdown.
The number of telephone subscribers in India increased from 1,160.52 million at the end of June to 1,164 million at the end of July 2020, indicating a 0.30 percent monthly growth rate. At the end of June, urban telephone subscriptions rose from 636.83 million to 638.46 million at the end of July 2020. Rural subscriptions during the same period rose from 523,69 million to 525,54 million. The monthly growth rate in July, for urban and rural telephone subscriptions, was 0.26% and 0.35%.
Cell phone connections in the country rose to 114.4 crores in July from 114 crores in June, with urban and rural connexions standing at 61.9 crores and 52.1 crores.
Fixed-line connections increased slightly to 1,98,20,419, after a number of years with the private telecom operators taking the lead, and Reliance jio leading the cartel.
Public sector telecom companies BSNL and MTNL and loss-making private firms Reliance Communications and Tata Teleservices continued to report downfalls In the fixed-line customer market,
Currently, the Indian mobile market is dominated by Reliance jio, standing tall with a 35.03 percent market share and 40,08,03,819 subscribers,
In July 32.6 lakh and 3.88 lakh, mobile customers were added by Bharti Airtel and BSNL. Vodafone Idea has lost over 37 lakh clients. 5,457 mobile service clients were also lost by State-run MTNL.
A broadband connection which is dominated by the mobile market, increased by 1.03 percent to 70.54 crores in July from 69.82 crores in June.
According to the TRAI report, at the end of July, the top five service providers accounted for 98.91 percent of the market share of total broadband subscribers.
The biggest issue Reliance jio is facing right now
Reliance jio with a 35% market share is the market leader and dominated the Indian telecom industry. However, there appears to be one metric where Jio is not performing quite so well as its rivals: active subscribers. While Jio’s subscriber base is undeniably the largest in the country, stats from TRAI show that its active subscriber number has fallen to just 78%, 6% lower than the previous year. This equates to around 87 million inactive users.
When it comes to Jio’s rivals, Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel’s active users were 89.33% and 97%, respectively; in total, this would mean that Bharti Airtel’s active users actually match that of Jio at around 310 million.
Reasons for this discrepancy are up for debate, with Jio telling the Financial Times that “there are various reasons that a customer, especially data customers, may not be active on the network at a given point of time.”
Economic pressures of the coronavirus have surely played a role here, with customers less likely to top up their plans during the crisis. Indeed, Jio’s super-cheap plans may themselves be a factor, with some customers likely to have purchased their plans due to their affordability, with little intention of frequent use.
Regardless of why their active user numbers are dipping, this is a troubling trend for the Indian giant, which currently aspires to increase its customer base to 500 million within three years. If the company is to continue to attract investment and succeed in its diversification strategy of providing everything from e-commerce to fintech, user activity will only increase in importance.
in July, there were 40.19 crore broadband customers for Reliance Jio, 15.57 crore for Bharti Airtel, 11.52 crore for Vodafone Idea, 2.3 crores for BSNL and 16.9 lakh for Atria Convergence.
The number of wireless internet subscribers was 720.7 million (97 percent share of the total pie) and 22.4 million were wired internet subscribers. A staggering 92.5% of all internet subscribers used broadband for internet access—687.4 million broadband users and 55.7 million narrowband subscribers were part of the internet customer base.
Jio is not only the market leader in the internet market but they are also creating a digital space to dominate and the market share of Jio which is more than double of Bharti Airtel shows the sheer dominance Jio has in the Indian digital space right now.