Bharti Airtel is recognised as a better quality network service provider when compared to Reliance Jio. Airtel aims to provide a faster and healthier data experience to its users, while Jio can’t do that because of its congested networks. Thus, it is no surprise that average data consumption by an Airtel user is more than that of a Jio user. According to a brokerage firm CLSA, the average data usage by 4G subscribers of Bharti Airtel is 16.7GB per month which is 30% more than what Jio users consume.
Jio Still Ahead of Airtel in Subscriber Market and Data Traffic Share
Reliance Jio is still ahead of Bharti Airtel when it comes to the subscriber market and data traffic share. Jio holds 53% of the subscriber share and 55% of the data traffic share, which is significantly more than the other telcos. However, CLSA’s report highlights that Jio lost 11ppt data traffic share to 55% when Airtel at the same time witnessed an increase of 12ppt in data traffic share. The upwards trend for Bharti Airtel should continue as the telco’s 133 million voice-only subscribers upgrade to 4G services. CLSA predicted that India’s 4G market would rise to 898 million subscribers by the end of FY23. 4G penetration in the country grew to 61%, with the total number of data subscribers reaching the mark of 770 million. According to the brokerage firm, India’s total mobile data traffic grew by 34% Year-on-Year (YoY) and reached 100mTBs. The growth in overall mobile data traffic was mainly led by 4G traffic which grew by 39% YoY. According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) data, the average data consumed by a 4G subscriber grew to 12.3GB, which portrays an 11% growth YoY. This is 1.7x more data than what a 3G subscriber consumed and 11x more data than what a 2G subscriber consumed. This means that as soon as more 4G subscribers are added to the list, the overall data traffic in the country will rise even further. The average data consumed by Jio users might increase as well if the telco can utilise the spectrum purchased recently and upgrade its network capacity rapidly.
