Airtel and Jio will Likely Serve Most of the 5G Users in India: Opinion

There won’t be a very large number of users who would take up 5G services initially, but the maximum of those who do would likely go to Airtel and Jio for their first-ever 5G experience. For Vodafone Idea to compete with Airtel and Jio as an equal, a lot of money would be required. Vi hasn’t been able to raise money for multiple reasons, and it has affected the company’s chances to deliver the kind of 5G services its competitors would.

But in the priority circles, Vi can definitely get its hands on the enterprise customers. That’s where most of the high-scale revenues would be with 5G in the initial days. Analysts also assessed that Vi’s 5G networks wouldn’t be able to compete with Jio and Airtel’s. Further, in the Category-C circles, its competitors can eat up all the market share.

5G would definitely come at a premium to 4G; how big that premium would be is something we will get to see in the near future. But one thing is for sure, if a user purchases a 5G SIM, he/she would most likely want PAN-India coverage, which at this moment only Airtel and Jio can deliver. 5G smartphone penetration is happening fast in India, and within the next two to three years, India is estimated to have hundreds of millions of 5G users. This means that Airtel and Jio will again get a lead over Vi in 5G as they did in 4G. The biggest pain point for Vi is 2G users, along with not being able to raise additional capital.