Bharti Airtel, India's second-largest telecom operator, put more focus on expanding in rural areas in FY25. Along with that, the telco has been very stringent in executing its 5G rollout plans and 4G expansion to add new customers after tariff hikes when other private telcos lost users. This has helped Bharti Airtel in closing the gap in revenue market share (RMS) with Reliance Jio. The emphasis on rural areas has likely been the difference maker.
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According to CLSA, Bharti Airtel gained 180bps in revenue market share and reached a 38.6% share in 2024. At the same time, the market leader Jio gained 15bps and its RMS was 41.6%. Airtel has closed the gap with Jio in RMS with a brilliant strategy to expand in remote and rural areas in 2024, and the company is expected to continue scaling networks in villages and backward areas in calendar year 2025.
Vodafone Idea (Vi), the third-largest telco in India, saw its RMS going down by 168bps in 2024 to 14.4%. Vi has also started investing in 4G expansion and wants to gain back market share from the competitors in 2025. Vi also has plans to launch 5G in the near future in a bid to acquire and retain premium or high-paying customers.
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As per an ET report, CLSA said that Reliance Jio's 4G/5G subscriber additions were at 19 million in 2024, compared to Bharti Airtel's 26 million during the same year. Airtel is the market leader when its comes to ARPU (average revenue per user) from mobile services. At the end of Q2 FY25, Airtel's ARPU stood at Rs 233 while Jio's ARPU was at Rs 195.
Jio saw a decline in subscribers as it increased prices, and as did Airtel, but the latter also gained new users in the following months while Jio lost.
