Reliance Jio adds 11.8 million subscribers in July 2018: ICRA

According to a new report by research firm, Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio added 11.8 million subscribers in July 2018. This is the highest monthly subscriber addition reported by RJio since February 2017, thus consolidating its position in the industry.

While other major telcos including Bharti, Vodafone, and BSNL/MTNL have reported marginal additions to their subscriber base in July 2018.

Harsh Jagnani, Sector Head & Vice President- Corporate Ratings, ICRA said: "In line with the increase in total subscriber base, the active subscriber base has also witnessed the addition of 5.4 million users. While the active subscriber base is lower than what it was one year ago - then at 1023 million - but importantly, the industry is now growing organically, with complete pruning of subscribers of discontinuing telcos."

However, ICRA pointed out that Vodafone-Idea leads the market with a subscriber market share of 38 percent, followed by Bharti at 30 percent and RJio at 20 percent.

On active subscriber basis, Vodafone-Idea market share stands at 41 percent, followed by Bharti at 34 percent and RJio at 19 percent as of July 2018. Overall, these top three telcos together have a subscriber base of 1,015.9 million, strengthening their combined market share to 87.8 percent as of July 2018 as against 87.5 percent as of June 2018.

In terms of active subscribers as well, the top three telcos hold 938.9 million active subscribers or 93.3 percent market share as of July 2018.

As per ICRA, another positive for the industry has been the fact that the wireless broadband subscriber base has maintained its strong growth trajectory, increasing to 442.3 million in July 2018, witnessing the addition of 13.1 million subscribers during July.

"Similar to the growth in wireless telephony segment, the growth in the wireless broadband segment has also been led by RJio, which added 11.8 million broadband subscribers in July 2018. RJio now accounts for over 51 percent of wireless broadband subscribers in the country" said Jagnani.