The Reliance Jio momentum has slowed down despite the launch of Prime membership drive in March 2017, said UBS in an analyst report.
Jio, which has all-India presence with its 4G network, reported net additions of 5.8 million in March against 12.2 million in February 2017. TRAI last week said Jio’s share in Indian telecom market rose to 9.3 percent in March from 8.8 percent in February.
“We are surprised to see lack of acceleration in March since Jio Prime offer was announced in the month,” said UBS.
UBS pointed out that April was the first month of Jio’s paid services and would offer further insight into customer conversion and migration from incumbents to Jio. The April figure for Reliance Jio is yet to be publicly disclosed.
Airtel has reported net additions of 3 million against 1.2 million. Idea Cellular reported net additions of 2.1 million against 1.2 million. Vodafone reported net additions of 1.8 million users against 0.8 million. The net addition indicates that Airtel was more aggressive in March as compared with the performance of Jio.
Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and Vodafone India could add subscribers thanks to their aggressive pricing strategy to take on Reliance Jio.
Other telecom operators lost market share with cumulative loss of subscribers expanding to 6.8 million vs. 1.7 million in Feb.
Vodafone recovers broadband subs in March
Airtel has expanded growth in broadband penetration to 22.1 percent from 20.9 percent in Feb.
Vodafone India too gained broadband market share with net adds of 5.7 million broadband subscribers.
Airtel’s pace of broadband net additions also increased to 2.4 million vs. 1.1 million in February. Idea increased broadband subscribers to 24.7 million by adding 0.4 million — reversing the trend of decline in Jan and Feb.
The presence of Reliance Jio did not move up porting requests. Porting requests saw small increase to 6 million but remains small as percent of total subscriptions.
UBS said it expects pick up in porting requests in April as Jio starts charging.
