Reliance Jio saw a 31.5% year-on-year increase in data traffic, going from 26.6 GB per user per month in the previous quarter to 27.3 GB per user per month, according to the company’s earnings call for the third quarter of financial year 2024 (Q3FY24). The company attributes this rise in data traffic to 5G deployment. “ 5G consumers are consuming [a] significantly higher amount of data than they were consuming on the LTE network, obviously, so that’s causing the increase in the data consumption,” Head of Strategy Reliance Jio Anshuman Thakur said during the call. The company’s total per capita data consumption was 3806 crore GB.
The company said that its True5G service is now available across India and 90 million of its subscribers have migrated to the 5G network. Jio claimed that its 5G network has three times greater availability than its nearest competitor and two times higher download speeds than its nearest competitor. Based on the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) latest monthly telecom subscription data, Bharti Airtel is Jio’s closest competitor in the Indian telecom market.
Key details mentioned in the earnings call:
Jio’s financial performance: Jio’s earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) for the quarter stood at Rs 13,422 crores increasing from the previous quarter where the EBITDA was Rs. 13,059 crore. Its EBITDA margins also increased, going from 52.8% last quarter to 53% this quarter.
Growth in subscriber base compared to other telcos: Besides the growth of the 5G network, the company also saw a general increase in subscribers, adding 11.2 million customers in Q3FY24 and 38 million subscribers in the past year. Jio pointed to TRAI subscription data and said that the telecom industry overall has seen a “nearly flat” 0.7% subscriber growth.
“But the stark difference is between the growth numbers delivered by Jio on a year-on-year basis as compared to the rest of the competition, while the rest of the competition actually has seen de-growth of nearly 3%, Jio has shown a nearly 7.5 percent increase in its subscriber base,” Jio Infocomm’s President Kiran Thomas said during the call. According to the company’s investor presentation, Jio also saw a 2.5 times higher net port than its nearest competitor.
Average revenue per user (ARPU) remains Rs. 181.7: The ARPU figures for Q3FY24 were the same as the previous quarter. Thakur explained that while there had been some increase in ARPU, “due to the subscriber mix, also the fact that we are currently offering 5G services on a trial basis impacted the ARPU because people don’t have to recharge for additional data usage at this point. So, therefore, there was a counterbalancing impact on the ARPU during the quarter.”
Jio mentioned that it has not monetized its 5G service in the previous quarter as well. According to estimates by the investment banking group Jefferies, both Jio and Airtel are likely to withdraw their unlimited 5G plans and charge at least 5-10% more for 5G services compared to their 4G costs from the second half of 2024. The fact that Thakur said that users are not required to recharge for additional data usage at this point signals that they might have to do so at a later time.
Rise in voice traffic: Jio saw a 7.9% year-on-year rise in voice traffic this quarter. Its voice on the network increased from 1,450 crore minutes per day last quarter to 1491 crore minutes per day this quarter.
On Jio Bharat’s performance: The company said that in the category of phones under Rs. 1000, Jio Bharat has a 45% market share on a month-on-month basis. Thomas mentioned that Jio has been seeing growth in rural areas this quarter which is the market base that Jio Bharat is targetted towards. “The net additions that are happening in those rural markets have now grown to become nearly five and a half times of our nearest competitor,” he said. Thomas explained that the company was also attempting to promote UPI payments through Jio Bharat and mentioned that 60% of all UPI 123 payments (UPI payments for non-smartphones) were happening through Jio Bharat.
JioAirFiber sees increased traction: Jio announced its plan to launch the AirFiber service– which is a fiber-like experience using wireless— in the company’s earnings call in July 2023. Since then, the company has seen a 30 times higher per capita usage of AirFiber compared to its optical fiber service. It attributes this usage to the content bundles that are offered with the service. Thomas also mentioned that Jio AirFiber is among the cheapest when compared to similar services offered by global telecom companies.
New product launches that are on the horizon: The company announced its plans to launch private 5G— a dedicated 5G installation just to power a factory location or a large campus— last year during the India Mobile Congress. Thomas mentioned that some large manufacturing stations and enterprises would like to have Private 5G.
Thomas said that the company is also entering “managed services”. “Basically, what we are trying to do is helping our customers enterprise and small, medium, small and medium customers with everything from advisory to implementation as well as ongoing management of the entire digital set of services that they would meet,” he explained adding that this would unlock new service revenue streams for the company.
Also read:
- Reliance Earnings: Jio Sees 70 Million Subscribers Shift From 4G To 5G
- Reliance Jio Makes Headway In Its Satellite Communication Plans: Report
- Airtel And Jio Expected To Increase 5G Prices By End Of 2024: Report
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