India’s number one telco, Reliance Jio, has now emerged as the world's largest mobile operator in data traffic consumption, surpassing China Mobile. The total traffic on the Jio network has reached 40.9 Exabytes compared with China Mobile’s 38 Exabytes during the January-March quarter, according to global analytics firm Tefficient.
Jio also holds the second largest 5G subscriber base globally at 108 million, with more than 28% of its total wireless data traffic now being consumed by 5G users, the company said in its analyst presentation.
To be sure, Jio’s average revenue per user (ARPU) also reflects the impact of subscriber additions of JioBharat phone users, who are value customers, and the unlimited 5G promotional plans.
Analysts say Jio's strong pace of user additions and consequent market share gains will augur well for revenue conversion in the near term, as and when tariff hikes are undertaken. They expect tariff hikes of 20-25% soon after the upcoming general elections, which end in early June.
Furthermore, demand for its fixed wireless home broadband offering AirFiber has been healthy across 5,900 towns, leading to record-high quarterly home connections, Jio added. The average daily data usage for AirFiber subscribers is 13 Gigabytes, which is 30% higher than JioFiber subscribers.
But despite the record-high numbers, the telco is unable to move the needle on its average revenues per user (ARPUs) as it has not monetized 5G yet, said analysts. The addition of low-value JioBharat phone users and promotional unlimited 5G plans continue to weigh on its ARPUs, which have remained stagnant for three continuous quarters, analysts added.
“Jio’s impressive 5G availability has driven successful 5G migration at promotional unmetered prices that is severely curtailing 4G data top ups and encouraging opportunistic price shopping to 1.5GB a day plans among price- sensitive consumers,” brokerage firm JP Morgan said in an analyst update on Tuesday.
