Bharti Airtel, India’s 2nd largest telecom operator, reported that it had 188.6 million Mobile Internet connections as of the quarter ended March, 31 2021. This is up by 13.89 million or nearly 8% from 174.7 million in the previous year. This is the highest number of mobile Internet connections Airtel has ever had, although its internet user base is still substantially lower than those of Reliance Jio. Data volume grew for Airtel during the quarter, along with the increase in connections. Airtel users consumed 9,207 billion MBs of data during the quarter, up 9% quarter on quarter from 8,453.7 billion MBs from the last quarter. That’s a growth of 753.3 billion MBs. Other Key Highlights 1. About 59% of Airtel’s connection base uses the internet. In March 2019, this was 41%, so this is a significant improvement. 4G is now around 56% of the total Airtel Mobile connections, and 95% of total Mobile Internet connections. In the previous quarter, 4G connections were 54% of total connections and 95% of Mobile Internet connections. 2. The constitution of this base has changed: The company has added 13.7 million mobile 4G connections. In the previous quarter, it added 12.9 million 4G connections. The 4G base has increased to 95% of Airtel’s data connections, compared to 92% a year ago. 3. Airtel’s 4G connection base increased by 13.7 million and its 2G+3G connection base grew by 0.2 million quarter on quarter. The number of connections not using the Internet decreased by 0.5…
