Jio cements rural dominance in July; JioBharat likely adding to growth, analysts say
Jio cemented its dominance of rural India in July as it was the only telco to add mobile users while both Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea (Vi) lost ground.
Analysts said the scenario underlines the growing appetite of entry-level mobile users for Jio's internet-enabled budget feature phone, JioBharat, to shift to 4G technology.
«Jio's strong (rural) momentum is likely driven by JioBharat phone subscribers, especially post Bharti' Airtel's recent hikes in the minimum recharge plans and Jio's launch of the new phone,» UBS said in a note.
Latest subscriber data collated by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) showed Jio added 2 million mobile users in the rural markets in July while both Airtel and Vi lost 540,000 and 690,000 rural users respectively.
Jio's rural mobile user base expanded to 194.73 million in July, while Airtel and Vi's slipped to 180.84 million and 111.32 million respectively.
In July, Jio's parent, Reliance Industries (RIL) had launched Jio Bharat, an internet-enabled feature phone, costing ₹999 in a bid to attract more of the estimated 250 million entry-level mobile broadband customers, especially in the rural markets where competition is set to intensify with rival Airtel also eyeing this market.
Both Jio and Airtel have been seeking to grab loss-making Vi's user base in the hinterlands as bulk of the telecom sector's net 4G user additions are from rural markets.
Latest mobile user data collated by the sector regulator Trai, though, suggests Jio has an initial edge over Airtel in that quest, especially with the latter partly weighed down by recent increases in base prepaid rates.
Analysts, though, expect both Jio and Airtel to corner 8% and 5% additional market share gains
