Two years on, Reliance Jio continues to dominate Indian telecom market, beating global giants

• Reliance Jio had 262.7 million subscribers in October.
  
• Both, Vodafone-Idea and Bharti Airtel, saw a decline in consumer base.
  
• The total number of telephone subscribers in India stands at a grand total of 1170.02 million as of October.

The Jio wave isn’t over yet. Reliance Jio and BSNL are the only telecom giants to add wireless subscribers in October, 2018 according to the subscribers’ report published by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

The Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio went from 252.2 million subscribers in September to 262.7 million in October, while BSNL saw a hike from its 113 million subscribers to 113.4 million in October. The total telephone subscribers in India stands at a grand total of 1170.02 million as of October, 2018. Trailing off in the race are bigwigs like Vodafone-Idea, Bharti Airtel and Reliance Infocomm.

The Jio Impact

With its discounted offers and plans, Jio continues to excite its consumer base, adding more and more numbers to its list. For example, Jio’s recent ‘Happy New Year’ offer announcing a 100 percent cashback for consumers opting for its ₹399 plan. With such plans, the telecom company aims to continue to make its mark in the country.

Jio, when it had launched in September 2016, had caused a huge uproar in the Indian telecom market promising to overtake its competitors which was also seen in the neverending queues of people looking to take on a Jio number. With free voice calls and data (only charging for data very recently), the company had managed to amass large number of subscribers.

With Mukesh Ambani’s massive growth plans for the company (Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) has invested a staggering $2.5 trillion into Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd.), the company is headed to overtake its rivals soon.

In fact, Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. could soon become the country’s no. 1 telecom operator by revenue in 2021 and on a subscriber basis by 2022, as stated in a Sanford C Bernstein & Co.

Vodafone-Idea still no breakthrough?

The Indian market was set to see an overhaul after two of India’s telecom giants Vodafone and Idea merging businesses in July 2018. However, although the new entity (Vodafone-Idea) still holds a majority of the market share, it saw a slide in addition of new consumers in October. The TRAI report states that the combined entity lost 6.5 million subscribers between September and October.

When the merger was approved to create the country’s largest mobile services operator, several government officials had touted the merger to bring in stability into the market to break a possible monopoly by Jio.

See also:
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