Reliance Jio's rural customers rise dramatically over the past few months

Key Highlights

• Reliance Jio grew its rural subscriber base from 5.72% in December 2016 to 24.05% in March 2017.
• Jio now has 2.6 crore rural subscribers out of its 10.86 crore subscribers.
• Airtel, Idea and Vodafone's rural subscriber base go up to nearly 50% of total subscribers.

Newcomer Reliance Jio has spread its reach in the rural markets with nearly 24.05% of its subscribers stemming from rural areas in India. 

Out of the total 10.86 crore Jio subscribers 2.6 crore comprise of rural subscribers, a report by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said on July 5.

In an earlier yearly performance report by TRAI, the data showed Jio’s total rural subscribers was only 41.2 lakh; while that of the incumbent operators like Airtel stood at 13.05 crore, Vodafone was at 10.99 crore and Idea at 10.4 crore, as on December 31, 2016.

Also Read: Reliance Jio is now officially the fourth largest telecom company in India, grabs 10% share

Airtel, Idea and Vodafone’s percentage of rural subscribers of the total was 48.42%, 54.77% and 53.68% respectively; with Idea Cellular having the highest amount of rural subscriber base.

In comparison Jio’s subscriber base was only 5.72% in December 2016.

Jio had introduced its ‘Happy New Year’ offer on December 1. As the company’s ‘Welcome offer’ would come to an end on December 31, the company introduced this offer in which customers would get free calling and data services till March 31, 2017.

Free 4G data was capped at 1GB per day after which the speed would go down to 128Kbps.

The company added 58 lakh subscribers in one month from February to March with the introduction of its Prime membership scheme. 

Jio said it had 7.2 crore Prime members as on March 31.

Also Read: Over 60 lakh requests for Mobile Number Portability received in March

However, Jio still has a long way to go before it catches up with the incumbent telecom operators in its rural subscriber base.

In the quarter ending March 2017, Bharti Airtel’s rural subscriber base stood at 13.66 crore (49.26%), Vodafone was at 11.40 crore (54.51%) and Idea was at 108.79 crore (55.69%).

Total number of rural subscribers as on March 31, 2017 was 50.16 crore out of 119.45 crore total subscribers, TRAI report showed.