Reliance Jio Adds Most Active Users For Third Straight Month In September

Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. remained India's largest telecom operator by active users for the third consecutive month, adding more regularly paying subscribers than Bharti Airtel Ltd. in September.

The company added as many as 47.3 lakh net active subscribers, compared to its six-month average of 43.8 lakh, according to data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India with a lag. That came even as the Mukesh Ambani-controlled telecom operator lost a significant chunk of gross subscribers.

Bharti Airtel Ltd. added 60,000 active subscribers in September—lower than its six-month average user addition of 12.2 lakh.

Vodafone Idea Ltd. continued to lose active users, but narrowed the outward migration from its network to 7.5 lakh compared with 32.7 lakh on an average in the last six months.

The active subscriber base of Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel grew 1.3% and 0.02%, respectively, over the preceding month, but fell 0.32% for Vodafone Idea.

Active Subscriber Base

• Bharti Airtel: 34.69 crore.

• Vodafone Idea: 23.57 crore.

• Reliance Jio: 35.54 crore.

Active Subscriber Market Share

While Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea slid on this parameter in September, Reliance Jio improved.

Gross Subscriber Addition

The telecom industry lost 2.07 crore gross subscribers in September. While Bharti Airtel gained 2.7 lakh users, Reliance Jio lost 1.9 crore. Vodafone Idea lost 10.8 lakh gross users—lower than its one-year average subscriber loss of 24.2 lakh.

As a result, Bharti Airtel's gross subscriber base rose 0.08% month-on-month in September. Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea’s gross subscriber base fell 4.3% and 0.3% over the preceding month, respectively.

Gross Subscriber Base

• Bharti Airtel: 35.45 crore.

• Vodafone Idea: 26.99 crore.

• Reliance Jio: 42.48 crore.

Industry Active Subscribers

The telecom industry’s active subscribers rose for the third straight month in September. The accretion was 39.6 lakh compared to the six-month average addition of 16.3 lakh.

Inactive Subscribers

While Bharti Airtel’s inactive user count widened in September after narrowing in July and August, it has the lowest share of such users.

Its peers had fewer inactive users in September.

Reliance Jio’s inactive subscriber base dropped for the second straight month. Vodafone Idea narrowed its inactive user base in September after it widened for seven months through August.

Reliance Jio’s VLR rate, or the proportion of active wireless subscribers to total wireless subscribers, rose to 83.65% in September from 79% a month ago. That compares with the industry average of 83.57%.

The metric stood at 97.86% and 87.31% for Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea, respectively.