Reliance Jio is officially the 4th largest telecom company in India with 10pc share

Six months of free voice and data services cherried with Prime, Summer Surprise and Dhan Dhana Dhan offers have officially made Reliance Jio the fourth largest telecom company in India with nearly 10 percent share.

Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio Infocom Ltd garnered a subscriber base of 10.86 crore making for a 9.29 percent market share as on March 31, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said on Friday. As per TRAI's data, Jio’s total subscribers were 10.2 crore in February and added 58 lakh new subscribers in one month with its Prime membership and other promotional offers.

The Prime membership that would give its customers discounts on apps usage and data benefits for another year included a one-time payment of Rs 99. Jio said that as on March 31 the company has garnered 7.2 crore Prime subscribers out of the total.

Airtel still the largest telco with 27.3 crore subscribers

Bharti Airtel still remained India’s largest telecom company with 27.3 crore wireless subscribers in March. The company had a market share of 23.39 percent in March as compared to 23.25 percent in February. Airtel and Telenor merger deal came through with the customer adding the latter's subscriber base to its own.

However subscriber base of small time players were seen to decrease from its previous month. Tata Docomo that had a 4.40 percent market share dropped to 4.19 percent in March. Its subscriber base dropped 22,30,840 to 4.8 crore.
Similarly Aircel that had a market share of 7.82 percent in February dropped to 7.77 percent in March declining 15,374 to 90,899,868 (9crore).

If we look at the total wireless subscribers (GSM, CDMA & LTE), it increased from 1,164.20 million at the end of Feb-17 to 1,170.18 million at the end of Mar-17, thereby registering a monthly growth rate of 0.51 percent.