Airtel adds revenue market share, closes gap with Jio

Kolkata: The fight for revenue market share (RMS) leadership in Indian telecom is hotting up with Bharti Airtel consistently narrowing the gap on this key performance metric with Reliance Jio, propelled by what analysts described as robust mobile broadband user additions, and strong market execution in both urban and rural pockets.

In 2024, Sunil Mittal-led Airtel gained 180 basis points (bps), boosting its RMS to 38.6% in end-December, compared with Jio's modest 15 bps rise to 41.6%, a CLSA analysis of telco financial data collated by the telecom regulator showed.

Loss-making Vodafone Idea's RMS, though, plunged a further 168 bps in 2024 to 14.4% as it continued to suffer heavy customer losses amid pending investments toward its 4G network expansion and 5G rollouts.

"India mobile leader RJio in 2024 gained 15bps RMS to 41.6% while Bharti gained a higher 180bps of revenue share to 38.6%, which reflects Bharti's strong subscriber additions, sector leading ARPU and stellar execution," CLSA said in a research note seen by ET.

The global brokerage said Jio's 4G/5G net subscriber additions at 19 million in 2024 were below Bharti's 26 million 4G/5G sub gains. This is since Airtel has been targeting top-end customers and is the sector leader in postpaid, which underlines its 19-33% premium in ARPU versus Jio and Vi.

The RMS is a key telco performance metric that measures overall telecom market leadership. A basis point is 0.01%.

Analysts, though, expect Jio to gain some RMS in 2025, helped by a combination of its lower tariffs vs Airtel, its 5G ramp-up and its aggressive overtures to upgrade India's remaining 180 million-odd 2G users to 4G.



"Jio has been focused on converting existing 2G users to JioBharat 4G users, and its recent tariff hike of 12-20% (in July 2024) indicates a shift in its strategy towards monetisation and also improves the visibility on future tariff hikes," Bernstein said.

Analysts also expect 2025 to be another year of 5G-led sector consolidation, especially since the next-gen mobile broadband technology has already been a catalyst for Jio and Airtel, pushing up their combined market share by 2ppt (percentage points) in 12-months to 80% in 2024.

"5G will continue to attract top-end subs and increase the duo's combined market share to 84% by FY27," estimates global brokerage CLSA. Jio and Airtel had 148 million and 105 million 5G users respectively in the quarter ended September.

Separately, analysts expect 2025 to be a decisive year for Vi to emerge as a viable player. The telecom JV between UK's Vodafone and India's Aditya Birla Group, continues to reel from its pending debt-raise, its awaited 5G rollout and needed relief on AGR dues front.

But having closed a ₹24,000-crore equity funding last year, analysts and industry experts expect Vi to soon raise another ₹25,000 crore debt - after the government's recent waiver of the bank guarantee requirement- to fuel its aggressive 4G and 5G play. The telco will kickstart a phased rollout of 5G services from March in India's key cities across its 17 priority markets.

JM Financial, though, said Vi needs multiple and significant tariff hikes to boost its ARPU to ₹380 by FY27 (from ₹156 in 2QFY25) for meeting its upcoming annual ₹43,000 crore payment obligation to the government over FY27-31 (and ₹29,100 crore payouts in FY26).