Vodafone Idea shares up by 10% as it adds subscribers for the first time in 15 months – Airtel, Reliance Jio expand their user base

• Vodafone Idea has broken its 15-month long streak of losing subscribers by adding 0.7 million subscribers in February 2021.
• Shares of the company were up by over 10% as the market reacted positively to the news.
• In the previous 15 months, Vodafone Idea lost over 50 million subscribers, while its rivals Airtel and Reliance Jio added over 66 million amongst themselves.

Shares of telecom player Vodafone Idea were up by nearly 10% as the beleaguered telecom provider ended its 15-month long streak of losing subscribers. In this time frame, it has lost over 50 million subscribers, while Airtel and Reliance added over 66 million subscribers amongst themselves.

Vodafone Idea’s share price hit a day’s high of 13%. At 11:00 am, it was up by over 11%, trading at ₹9 per share.

According to the telecom subscriber data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) for the month of February 2021, Vodafone Idea added 0.7 million subscribers, Airtel added 3.7 million and Jio led with 4.3 million additions.

In comparison to the steep increase in Vodafone Idea’s share price, Airtel’s shares were down by nearly 1%. Jio’s parent company Reliance Industries was also down by nearly 1%.

Reliance Jio’s active subscriber problem continues to worsen

Even though Reliance Jio has the largest subscriber base, it continues to be haunted by a poor rate of active subscribers – its rate of 78% of active subscribers is only better than state-run telcos BSNL and MTNL.

With the context of active subscribers added in, Vodafone Idea’s numbers aren’t as bad as it is often portrayed to be.

On the other hand, Airtel continues to march ahead of Reliance Jio in this regard, improving its tally despite adding slightly lower number of subscribers in February.

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