Airtel’s mobile Internet user base increased by around 5.2 million, up 4.5% QoQ to 62.6 million from 57.4 million during the quarter ended June 31st, 2017 (Q1 FY18). The telco seems to be slowly recovering from the intense competition after losing around 7 million users in Q3 FY17, which was the quarter after Jio’s launch. The company however recovered in Q4 FY17 by adding 2.45 million customers. Airtel also added 6.2 million mobile broadband (3G+4G) users during the quarter, taking the total base to 48.9 million from 42.7 million in Q4 FY17. Note that data customers accounted for 22.3% of Airtel’s overall mobile customer base in Q1 FY18, which is up from a 21% share that mobile customers held in the previous quarter. The telco’s total customer base stood at 280.6 million during the current quarter, up marginally by 2.6% QoQ. Data usage and metrics Mobile data consumption also increased significantly: up by 247.29 billion MBs (around 109.8% QoQ growth) to a total of 472.3 billion MB during the quarter, from just 225.1 billion MB in the previous quarter. Airtel seems to have picked up some traction in data usage after Jio launched paid packs. The telco’s mobile consumption rates had dropped drastically in the quarter after Jio’s launch. Although Airtel was able to add new customers and increase data usage on its network, its Data ARPU (average revenue per user) declined 4% QoQ to Rs 156 from Rs 162 in the preceding quarter. The last time that Airtel’s Data ARPU dipped to such low levels was in December…
