Jio added 8.5 million active users in October; still failed to boost shares: Report

Reliance Jio keeps on adding more subscribers to its customer base. The new report claims that the highest addition in, active users increased in four consecutive months. The company has added 8.5 million active users in October 2018, which is far more better than Bharti Airtel who have only managed to attract 3.4 million subscribers. The data was made available by Motilal Oswal Securities Ltd. On the other hand, Vodafone Idea saw a fall of 2 per cent and manages to have 2.9 million only.

Surprisingly, Reliance Jio's parent company Reliance Industries Ltd also witnessed shares fall of 1.5 per cent despite the subscriber base. It seems that the company is focusing on subscriber additions and cost-effective feature phones.

"We note that the chase for feature phone subscriber market share has led to the rollout of low-average revenue per user plans," Motilal Oswal said in a note, referring to the Jio Phone offering.

As per Motilal Oswal, around 33% of (35%) of Airtel and Vodafone Idea customers are low-paying clients (sub-₹15). As the tariff climbs kick in, the broking firm observes huge stir in this piece of the subscriber base.

"A drop in the number of subscribers, per se, isn't something that will worry incumbents," Live Mint quoted an analyst as saying. It also relies upon how dual-SIM users have responded to the tariff climbs. In the event that a large section of users likes to hold Reliance Jio as their primary telecom connection, at that point it can make an imminent impact on the revenue base.

According to TRAI, Vodafone Idea lost 73.61 lakh, mobile subscribers, Airtel 18.64 lakh, Tata Teleservices lost 9.25 lakh, MTNL 8,068 and RCom 3,831 customers.

Source