Airtel Beats Reliance Jio in the Active Subscriber Base

In April, the top telecom operator Bharti Airtel added more active members than Reliance Jio Infocomm for the first time since its launch in September. Analysts warned that the 4G admittant may have to face challenges in additional users.

Bharti Airtel has managed to notch up 2.6 million active subscribers in the Month of April compared to Reliance Jio’s 400000 addition.

Brokerage Goldman Sachs said that Bharti Airtel, led by Sunil Mittal, notched 2.6 lakh active subscribers, in April, compared to the 400,000 active VLR customers owned by Mukesh Ambani in April, 'Visitors' Location Register 'or' VLR data analyzed. By the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI)

Visitor's location register is an important metric that uses the mobile services to actively reflect the number of customers.

Well, Indians are always at the top of availing any facility on the Internet. Reliance Jio has already offered its six months of free services, which include unlimited data, unlimited voice calls and SMS.

It seems that Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Jio has lost its charm because telecom operator Bharti Airtel becomes a more active customer than Reliance Jio in the month of April.

This is the first time since launch in September 2016 that Bharti Airtel has managed to beat Reliance Jio when it comes to active customer base. 

Reliance Jio had already started to charge users, which encouraged users to go back to the previous telecom providers because the free streak of Reliance Jio had made other operators cut the prices of their services, which is too low.

Goldman Sachs also expects that Reliance Jio has to face some difficulties in connecting more active users in the coming months and it shows that the increase in the number of subscribers of 400,000 active (VLR) customers in April was its "its fourth straight month of deceleration". 

Reliance Jio hasn’t commented anything on this. However, a source told ETTelecom that Jio didn’t give much importance to the disappointing VLR numbers.


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