Airtel takes on growth leadership mantle, as Reliance Jio slows down

For the second quarter in succession, Bharti Airtel Ltd has beaten Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd’s net subscriber additions figure by a wide margin. Airtel added 14.2 million subscribers in the December quarter, on the back of an addition of 13.9 million in the preceding quarter. Jio’s comparable numbers for the two quarters stand at 5.2 million and 7.3 million subscribers respectively.

As the chart shows, Jio’s growth rates have slowed down considerably. It used to beat Airtel hands down earlier, but that has changed.

“Jio’s lower growth rates appear to be a function of capacity constraints, especially in large urban centres. Some of this may get corrected after the spectrum auctions, although even there the company needs to take a call on whether it should augment its 4G capacity, or hold back resources for a large 5G bet later,” said an analyst at a domestic institutional brokerage, requesting anonymity.