Reliance Jio Has Taken Over Bharti Airtel To Become India's Second Largest Provider

Reliance Jio, the newbie in the telecommunication industry, has surpassed Bharti Airtel to get the spot as the 2nd biggest mobile operator in India. The number of its subscribers is 32.29 crores and it occupies 27.8 percent of total market share (data from TRAI in May).

This move proves significant as Jio just entered this very competitive industry back in September of 2016 with their data and voice offerings while Bharti Airtel has been in this business since 1995.

May's Ranking - Jio got the 2nd spot

According to the data from TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India), the biggest mobile operator continues to be Vodafone Idea. This is a combination of Idea Cellular and Vodafone India since the merger last year. As of 31 May this year, the telecom provider has 38.75 crore subscribers and holds 33.36% of the total market share in the segment of wireless networks.

Bharti Airtel (with the promotion of Sunil Mittal) has dropped to the 3rd spot, having around 32.03 crore users along with the market share of 27.58%.

All the major carriers have their own data plans for different needs, especially the Airtel smartbytes, which is attracting lots of attention from users. To see which one is suitable for you, read this comparison to find out.

Just in May, Reliance Jio got another 81.8 lakh subscribers. They ended that month registering a market share of 27.80 percent and the subscriber number of 32.29 crores.

The most interesting thing is that BSNL telecom who is waiting for a government's relief package and has been implementing cost-cutting measures - got 2,125 new subscribers during this May.

The well-established players in the industry like Airtel and Vodafone Idea lost over 15.08 lakh and 56.97 lakh users, respectively. Even though the smartbytes plan had helped improve the situation a little bit. That is mainly due to their minimum recharge plan that they are using to get higher ARPUs and improve their financial situation.

If you are wondering what that plan of Airtel does, smart bytes allows you to top-up even when you have zero balance in your data account. You can check Airtel's plans here.

April's ranking

This change of order in May contrasted with April's rankings. At the time, Bharti Airtel was the 2nd biggest mobile operator in the market, having 32.18 crore users along with 27.69% of wireless market share. While in April, Reliance Jio held the 3rd spot with about the subscriber level of 31.48 crores as well as 27.08% of total market share. And of course, in April, Vodafone Idea also held the "crown" of the biggest mobile operator in the country, holding 39.92 crore users and 33.83% of market share. The second place belongs to Airtel.

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