TRAI April users' data: BIG News for Jio and Airtel! Jefferies bullish on telecom sector – what investors should know

On the back of April subscribers’ data, the brokerage firm — Jeffries is bullish on the telecom sector, which is mainly lead by Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel. However, the brokerage remained skeptical on Vodafone Idea, which reported over Rs 7000 crore losses in quarter four of the financial year 2020-2021.

According to the data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Reliance Jio topped the subscription chart for April by adding over 47.56 lakh users in April. Jio's overall subscriber base jumped to over 42.76 crore users

See Zee Business Live TV Streaming Below:

Similarly, the second player in the race — Bharti Airtel added over 5.17 lakh users during the month under review, taking its subscriber base to over 35.29 crores. While on the other hand, Vodafone Idea’s subscriber base was eroded by over 18.10 lakh users to more than 28.19 crore.

Jefferies says, the telecom sector’s subscriber additions moderated to 2 million due to lockdown, with Jio led the field with 4.8 million additions in its user base due to JioPhone offer. While Airtel’s subscriber additions moderated to 0.5 million due to 4.5 million urban users, brokerage adds.

Urging investors to Hold on Bharti Airtel shares, Jefferies mentions that high rural subscriber share will be targeted by Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio.

The shares of Bharti Airtel declined by over 1 per cent to Rs 529.65 per share, while the parent company of Jio, Reliance Industries shares grew half a per cent to Rs 2084.45 per share and cash-strapped Vodafone Idea shares traded flat but negative to Rs 9.02 apiece on the BSE Monday.

The regulatory said in a statement, “Total wireless subscribers increased from 1,180.96 million at the end of March-21 to 1,183.11 million at the end of April-21, thereby registering a monthly growth rate of 0.18 per cent.”