Have Rivals Countered Reliance Jio’s Onslaught?
All is not lost for the country’s top three telecom companies, according to Kotak Securities.
Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd.’s rivals may have been able to counter its onslaught and stand to gain after the country’s newest telecom operator ended free services.
Bharti Airtel Ltd., Vodafone India Ltd. and Idea Cellular Ltd. have controlled the churn ratio as well as added new active subscribers, a report by Kotak Securities said. The churn ratio indicates the percentage of subscribers who discontinue their subscriptions, while active subscribers indicate customers using the network.
Customers lured by Jio’s free offerings continue to stay active on incumbents’ networks and those who have taken a Jio SIM continue to use the incumbent networks.Kotak Securities Report
Reliance Jio started in September last year by offering free services. The company has since gained more than 10 crore subscribers, but the number of active subscribers is still below the industry standards.
Although Reliance Jio has been adding more customers than peers, the pace of addition has slowed down due to limited fourth generation (4G) devices, the report added.
During the period when Reliance Jio was offering free services, customers did shift usage from the top three telecom operators, hurting their average revenue per user. But with Reliance Jio starting to charge from April 1, rival operators do stand a chance to gain, according to the Kotak Securities report.
Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular reported a 7-9 percent drop in their average revenue per user in the third quarter ended December of financial year 2016-17.
The trend is likely to continue in the fourth quarter as Reliance Jio was providing free services till March 2017. All the three companies are yet to report their earnings for the fourth quarter of FY17.