Reliance Jio added 5.8 mn users in March, controlling 9.3% of market: Trai

Accounted for 40% of user additions by top 5; stood 4th in overall base, behind Airtel, Voda, Idea

Reliance Jio added a whopping 5,839,734 subscribers and controlled 9.29 per cent of the telecom market as of March 31, shows the latest report by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).

In March, Airtel led in terms of overall telecom market share, with 23.39 per cent of all subscribers. It was followed by Vodafone with a 17.87 per cent share, and Idea with 16.70. Reliance Jio was a distant fourth with 9.29 per cent subscribers.

According to the report, the telecom industry saw a net addition of 5.98 million customers in March. While Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular continue to add subscribers to their base, telecom operators such as Reliance Communications and Tata lose most of their subscribers.

Last year, Reliance Jio had entered highly competitive telecom space with a free preview plan that offered unlimited free 4G high-speed data, VoLTE calls, SMS and app services for a period of 6 months. The free services helped the new entrant score more that 100 million subscribers within a span of 6 months, most of which came from competitors.

After offering free services under its network-testing phase, Reliance Jio offered Prime membership under which the subscriber get 4G high-speed data at an ultra-affordable price. Also, the VoLTE calls, SMS, and app remains free and the customers are asked to pay only for the data services.

According to the Reliance Jio announcement made in March, the company achieved the milestone of converting 72 million subscribers to Prime membership, which in itself was a huge achievement.