Jio beats Airtel to be No. 2 in revenue market share

Reliance Jio Infocomm has become a strong No. 2 in India by revenue market share (RMS) in the January-march quarter, racing ahead of Bharti Airtel, while Vodafone Idea managed to keep its No. 1 spot with its RMS rising for the first time after 10 quarters of decline, analysts said. Jio reported a 182 basis points sequential jump in RMS in the March quarter to 31.7%, while Airtel slumped 285 bps to 27.3%. Market leader Vodafone Idea, in turn, reported a modest 57 bps sequential rise in RMS to 32.2%, brokerage Emkay Global said in a report analysing financial data collated by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).

Vodafone Idea, which started reporting combined RMS data from the September quarter of FY19 following the merger last August, had been reporting dips on this score. Before the merger, erstwhile Vodafone India and Idea Cellular had last reported RMS

growth in the June quarter of FY17. Jio, however, has recorded strong revenue growth across 21 circles and is the leader in 15 markets. “Jio continues to be market leader across category A, B & C circles while Vodafone Idea maintains metro market leadership,” Rajiv Sharma, co-head of research at SBICAP Securities, said recently. By contrast, Bharti Airtel suffered sequential revenue declines in key markets such as Karnataka (-15%), Tamil Nadu (-16%), Delhi (- 33%) and Andhra Pradesh (-8%), culminating in the nation’s second-largest telco being relegated to the third spot on the RMS count. Bharti Airtel saw an 11.4% sequential fall in adjusted gross revenue (including national long distance or `NLD’ service revenue) in the March quarter to Rs 8,608.2 crore, which is 19% lower than the Rs 10,632 crore quarterly mobile revenue from local mobile services it reported in the fiscal fourth quarter. ■