After Jio Everything changed massively in India. When the company launched commercial mobile services in 2016, the low cost of its mobile plans initiated a brutal price war, ultimately leading to broad market consolidation, including the creation of Vodafone Idea (now Vi). Jio quickly grew to become the largest operator in the country, a position it retains to this day. With the sector buckling under the weight of the enormous adjusted gross revenue dues that were imposed on the country’s mobile operators by the government in the following years, Jio has proved far less encumbered than its rivals, continuing to record fairly consistent growth.
In a recent monthly report by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Jio now has the most number of subscribers for its fixed-line broadband service JioFiber in the wired broadband segment.
JioFibre’s rise to prominence has been meteoric. Having first launched commercial services in September 2019, the company quickly attracted customers from its more established rivals with an aggressive pricing strategy that left BSNL struggling to compete. In September 2019, BSNL had 8.69 million subscribers, a total that has since shrunk by over 50%.
BSNL had dominated the Indian fixed-line market since its inception over 20 years ago.
Despite its losses in the fixed broadband segment, the company’s Chairman, PK Purwar, said in October last year that the company was “operationally sustainable” and would look to launch 4G services using homegrown equipment in the following six months.
In addition, India’s total broadband subscribers increased from 798.95 million in October to 801.6 million in November last year. The report further states that the top 5 service providers had a combined market share of 98.68%. After Jio, Bharti Airtel took the second position with 210.10 million total broadband subscribers, followed by Vodafone Idea (122.40 million), BSNL (23.62 million), and Atria Convergence (1.98 million). What are your thoughts on this? Don’t forget to tell in the comments section below!
