Did Airtel really add 36 million users in May? The story behind the numbers…
Disruptive innovation in the telecom industry in India has prompted consolidation in the form of mergers and acquisitions. As a result, the Vodafone-Idea merger resulted in the biggest telecom company in India. Airtel’s acquisition of Telenor has also resulted in a transfer of assets. Ultimately, it comes down to the race to acquire the maximum number of subscribers.
The latest report published by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) provides information on telecom subscriptions as of May 31, 2018 across India. These include both, wireless as well as wireline subscribers and provides an insight into the share of rural subscribers as opposed to urban subscribers along with state-wise tele-density. A glance at the highlights of the report indicates that there has been a growth of 0.53% in the number of wireless subscribers in the country. Whereas, wireline subscribers have declined by 0.59%. Further, Airtel seems to be charging ahead of competition with more than 35 million subscribers added in May 2018. Reliance Jio comes a distant second, with less than a third of Airtel’s figures, at a little more than 9 million subscribers added. With the hue and cry over Reliance Jio taking away market share from incumbent operators, one would have expected a different outcome. So I decided to take a closer look at the numbers.
Reliance Jio is among the few Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) who have posted a positive change in their subscription data. Reliance Jio, Airtel, Vodafone and state service provider BSNL are the only TSPs that have added subscribers to their network. Idea, Telenor, Tata and MTNL, on the other hand, have reported a loss of subscribers from their network.
In that case, Airtel’s numbers tells us a different story altogether. While TRAI’s report also includes requests for Mobile Number Portability (MNP), Airtel’s claim of more 35 million new subscribers plus those transferring to a new TSP seems far-fetched. Given that only 5.94 million net wireless subscribers were added, it stands to reason that the subscribers that Telenor reported as a loss were added to Airtel’s kitty, post the acquisition. In this case, Airtel should have posted gains of more than 36 million subscribers in the month of May 2018. But readers, if we take a close look into Airtel’s subscribers without the Telenor acquisition, Airtel shows a drop of 294,607 subscribers during this period.
So which TSP is in the lead?
Yes, market consolidation is an effective way of re-establishing majority market share. Yes, Vodafone did this by announcing its merger with Idea Cellular back in 2017. Yes, Airtel attempted the same feat by acquiring Telenor recently. However, the numbers clearly indicate the winner. Including MNP figures, Reliance Jio has added the highest subscribers in the month of May 2018. With the launch of the JioPhone 2, these figures I’m sure, are just an indication of the consumption trends expected in India’s telecom industry.
