Reliance Jio, the new 4G operator, has the highest number of subscribers in Andhra Pradesh, followed by Gujarat and Delhi.
The company added 20 mln (2 cr) new users in December, its highest ever tally for a single month.
The previous record was held by October, when it added 19.63 mln users. In December, the 4G player added 20.28 mln subscribers. The company accounted for 73% of the total subscriber additions in the month.
The highest number of users for the operator was in Andhra Pradesh telecom circle, which also includes the state of Telangana.
Here, its tally increased by nearly 1.9 mln in one month to 6.36 mln users.
Following in second place is Gujarat, the state from which the family of Jio’s chairman Mukesh Ambani originates. Here, the total number of subscribers increased to 55.93 lakh (5.59 mln) from 38.23 lakh in November.
Delhi was close behind with 5.37 mln users, up from 3.95 mln in November.
In fact, Delhi was the only telecom zone where the company could cross the 10% subscriber mark in December.
In Delhi, Jio accounted for 10.55% of the total subscribers. In all other states, its share was still in single digits. However, it was close to 9% in Mumbai and Kolkata, and around 5% in states like Assam, Bihar, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh (West and East) and West Bengal.
ACTIVITY DROPS
The level of ‘switched on users’ dropped quite sharply in December for the operator.
While 84.44% of its subscribers were switched on in November, by December only 79.7% of the total subscribers were switched on at any given time.
In comparison, 97% of Bharti Airtel’s subscribers were switched on at one point during the month.
The proportion of switched-off users is likely to increase in January as the company cut down by 75% the amount of free data that a single user could use.
These actual subscriber numbers are at variance with those given by Truecaller, an application tracking mobile calls in the country.
Truecaller had estimated that Jio has around 23% market share among its users. However, Truecaller’s sample includes only smartphone users. RJio is not present in the ‘dumb phone’ market yet.