NE BUSINESS BUREAU
AHMEDABAD, DEC 25
The latest technology company offering telecom services in India, including Gujarat, Jio has crossed a new milestone in the state. In just 50 months, Jio got 2.50 crore mobile users, in Gujarat. The company becomes the fastest operator in Gujarat to touch this milestone.
The telecom regulatory authority of India, Trai released October 2020 subscription numbers. The report reveals that Jio, which started its services in September 2016, had first time crossed the subscription base of 2.50 crore by end of October 2020.
Mobile phone services were first launched in Gujarat in 1997 with a couple of operators with a tariff of Rs 16 per minute for outgoing calls. Slowly and gradually, the number of operators increased and the number of subscribers too. It took over 12 years for all seven mobile operators together in the state to touch the mark of 2.50 crore subscribers in the state. In May 2009, the seven telecom operators who together posted the total number of mobile users in Gujarat were Vodafone Essar, Idea, Bharti Airtel, RCom, Tata Teleservices, Aircel, and BSNL.
Against that, Jio alone, which launched its services in September 2016, took just four years and two months to reach that level. Post-launch of Jio in India, the data consumption became very affordable and call rates were made zero.
As per Trai’s data, by end of October 2020, Gujarat had total of 6.73 crore users. Of the total, Vodafone Idea tops the chart with 2.53 crore subscribers followed by Jio with 2.50 crore. Bharti Airtel had 1.07 crore users while BSNL had 61 lakh mobile subscribers. Compared with the previous month’s numbers, the total subscribers increased by 5.36 lakh from 6.67 crores in September 2020.
Recently, Trai also shares financial performance reports of telecom operators in Gujarat. As per the report, Jio tops the chart with a 45.13% share with posting Rs 978 crore in the quarter ending in September 2020. Vodafone Idea enjoys a 29.38% share with revenue of Rs636 crore in the same period. Bharti Airtel and BSNL had a share of 15% and 9%, respectively, with revenue of Rs 331 crore and Rs 192 crore, respectively, in the quarter ending in September 2020.
