TRAI market share stats show Reliance Jio effect
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TRAI market share stats show Reliance Jio effect

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has released data from its latest annual telecom services performance indicator report.

According to findings, leading telecoms operators Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular all saw their market shares fall in 2016. Due in part to newcomer Reliance Jio and their free voice and data offerings.

Bharti Airtel saw its market share drop from 24.07% at the end of December 2015 to 23.58% by the end of December 2016. Vodafone had a drop of 18.16% from 19.15% between December 2015 and December 2016. Idea Cellular experienced the smallest reduction in market share from 17.01% in 2015 to 16.9% in 2016. New market entrants Reliance Jio who began operations in September 2016 ended the year with an impressive 6.4% market share.

Interestingly, despite the fall in market share many operators increased their subscriber base during 2016. Bharti Airtel added 22.56 million new users, Vodafone - 11.09 million new users and India’s wireless subscriber base increased to 1,127 million new users, a growth of 11.52%.

In May, Reliance Jio was reportedly in talks with the Indian government about using its dark fibre network that is due to connect 250,000 rural communities by the end of next year. The Indian 4G operator brought LTE-quality voice services to 100 million customers in less than six months – even to people without 4G phones.

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