Since the time Reliance Jio has come into the market, it has been achieving new milestones one after another. This time, according to the data published by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Reliance Jio has overtaken Bharti Airtel in the wireline subscriber market share. In the wireless category, Jio is already ahead. But in the wireline category, until January 2022, BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited) was at the top, followed by Bharti Airtel in the second and Reliance Jio in the third.
But now that has changed. Airtel has slipped to the third position, and Jio has claimed the second spot in February 2022. BSNL is still at the number one spot comfortably.
Jio Adding New Wireline Users Aggressively
Reliance Jio has been adding new wireline users aggressively. In the month of February 2022, Jio added 0.24 million new wirelines users. Compared to this, Airtel and Vodafone Idea added 0.091 million and 0.024 million new wireline subscribers. BSNL and MTNL (Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited), both state-run telecom companies, lost wireline users.
In January 2022, BSNL had a wireline users market share of 31.50%. At the same time, Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel had 23.30% and 23.44% market share in the same category. But in February 2022, the figures changed to 30.90% for BSNL, and 24% for Reliance Jio, followed by 23.52% for Bharti Airtel.
With the speed at which Reliance Jio is adding new wireline users, it won’t be long before it also overtakes BSNL later in 2022. The state-run telco doesn’t have the cash flow to raise capex levels to compete with private telecom companies.
It is a good sign for Vodafone Idea that it added new wireline users. Vodafone Idea has a broadband arm called You Broadband which also provides wireline landline connections to the users along with an internet connection. Jio is definitely benefiting from the popularity of the JioFiber brand across India.
