Over the period of last six months, the telecom service provider Bharti Airtel has constantly added new subscribers to its existing base, while a similar trend is not shared by Reliance Jio.
Despite adding the highest number of wireless subscribers in February, the latter’s active user base is showing a downward trend, losing about 2 lakh subscribers.
In a head-to-head attempt to garner the highest number of active subscribers and poach each others’ existing subscribers, telcos Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio are rolling out different offers for their users, especially for over 50 million of their rural and low-income subscriber base.
Airtel announced to offer a new pack for 55 million of its low-income customers, who have been thwarted by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
This announcement comes during a time when India’s largest telco, Reliance Jio is serving its feature phone subscribers with attractive offers and initiatives.
Airtel’s Rs 49 New Pack
A major fraction of India’s top three telcos’, Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea, subscriber base is contributed by the rural population.
Keeping this in mind, Bharti Airtel announced to offer benefits worth Rs 270 crore for its low income customers, in the count of 55 million, to provide them aid during the ongoing pandemic.
The second-largest telco stated on Sunday that it will provide a pack of Rs 49 to over 55 million low-income customers, which will offer a talk time of Rs 38 and 100 MB data with a validity of 28 days.
“Airtel prepaid customers buying the Rs 79 Recharge Coupon will now get double the benefit. This will make it easier for them to stay connected at a difficult time”, added the telco.
Airtel will reportedly announce its January-March quarter results on Monday.
Airtel Smashes Jio in Terms of Subscriber Addition
In November last year, Reliance Jio flaunted a market share of 33.5% active subscribers, outpacing Bharti Airtel, whose share was 33.4%.
After a period of three months, the positions reversed, as Airtel’s market share climbed to 34.6%, while that of Jio declined to 33%.
ICICI Securities stated that it was the first time Reliance Jio’s active subscribers declined for two consecutive Airtel Offers Rs 49 Pack For Free To These 5.5 Crore Users; Spends Rs 270 Crore For Users
.
“In the past 12 months, RJio has added 12 million active subscribers; this compared to Bharti’s net subscribers add on active and mobile broadband was 25.1 million and 41.6 million, respectively. For Jio, active subs and mobile broadband subs (active) are the same,” added ICICI Securities.
In Q3FY21, subscriber addition was strongest at Airtel with 14 million new additions, followed by a modest number of additions at Jio, 5.2 million and weakest at Vodafone Idea, marking a decline in subscriber addition by 2 million.
While Airtel’s number of active subscribers soared to 340 million, Jio witnessed a loss of 3.5 million active subscribers, bringing down its number to 324 million. The number of active subscribers for Vodafone Idea as of February 2021 is 256 million.
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