Reliance Jio lost nearly 13 million wireless subscribers in December owing to a combination of factors such as the recent tariff hikes, SIM consolidation and weeding out inactive users from the network. Quite in contrast, rival Bharti Airtel, which had also hiked prepaid tariffs by 20-25% from November 26, managed to add 475,081 subscribers during the month. Vodafone Idea, which has been consistently losing subscribers, lost fewer users in December compared with Jio, at 1.61 million.
According to latest data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), the huge loss of subscribers by Jio pulled down the overall wireless subscriber base by 1.10% to 1,154.62 million in December.
Prior to this, Reliance Jio had seen such a sharp drop in its subscriber base in September, when it had lost 19 million subscribers.
All the three private telcos had undertaken tariff hikes in the range of 20-25% in November-December. As a result of the hike, state-run BSNL managed to add 1.18 million subscribers in December as many low-income users opted to join its network.
According to analysts, the sharp drop in Jio’s subscriber base indicates that JioPhone Next, an affordable smartphone developed with Google, has not helped grow its customer base. Further, it seems that not too many people are recharging the JioPhone, a 4G feature phone which was launched in 2017 and whose enhanced version was launched in 2018.
Jio is still offering the JioPhone for Rs 1,999 with a two-year unlimited plan and for Rs 1,499 for one-year unlimited plan. Existing JioPhone users can recharge for Rs 749 for an unlimited one-year plan. JioPhone 2 is available for Rs 2,999.
Reliance Jio president Kiran Thomas said during the company’s Q3 results announcement that a combination of tariffs and the challenging environment around Covid-19 have meant that there has been a lot of consolidation on the SIM base.
Jio also expects that the full impact of tariff hikes will come in the coming 3-6 months. Further, the data indicate that Jio is getting impacted more by SIM consolidation.
In contrast, Bharti has been cleaning its customer base too often through timely tariff hikes for low-end plans, which enabled it to add customers in December, despite increasing the rates. In fact, the average revenue per user (Arpu) of Bharti Airtel increased to Rs 163 in Q3 of FY22, which continues to be the best in the industry, remaining ahead of Reliance Jio’s Rs 151.6. The upside in Arpu was led by price intervention and continued momentum in 4G customer additions.
Over the past two quarters, Bharti has done several tariff hikes to improve Arpu. The company had increased tariffs on certain postpaid plans across retail and enterprise segments during Q2FY22, while in November 2021 Bharti Airtel increased the prepaid tariffs across all price points by 20-25%, including unlimited plans as well as combo vouchers.
Jio’s tariff plans remain the most affordable even after the hikes.
In terms of wireless subscriber base, Jio continues to remain on top with 415.71 million subscribers, followed by Bharti Airtel with 355.76 million and Vodafone Idea with 265.51 million.
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