Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio replaces Vodafone-Idea to become India’s No. 1 mobile operator

New Delhi: Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio has emerged as the country’s biggest mobile operator. In less than years after entering into the telecom business, Jio has replaced Vodafone-Idea from the numero uno position and in April to June quarter of this year, has earned more revenue than Vodafone-Idea.

Reliance Jio commenced its operations in September 2016. It has reported a subscriber base of 33.1 crore in the quarter ending June 30. However, in the same period, Vodafone-Idea had 32 crore users it continued to shed low-spending customers as part of a new business strategy.

In March this year, Jio had moved ahead of Bharti Airtel. Last year, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular merged and formed Vodafone-Idea entity. It had more than 42 crore subscribers at that time and was expecting to challenge Reliance Jio by synergising business operations and spendings. In fact, the new company also seems to be going through tough times, according to a newspaper report.

“Jio has started connecting Enterprises with its next-gen connectivity solutions on the back of its extensive fiber network across the country. Beta trials of JioGigaFiber services have been very successful and the entire bouquet of smart home solutions would soon be rolled out to targeted 50 million households and beyond. Jio is committed to power the Digital Revolution in India through its technology platforms across communication, entertainment, commerce, financial services, education, healthcare, agriculture and beyond,” Mukesh Ambani said while commenting on company’s Q1 results.

“Jio management is focused on giving unmatched digital experience at most affordable price to every citizen, and accordingly expanding the network capacity and coverage to keep pace with demand,” Ambani further said.

Vodafone-Idea said on Friday that its April-June loss stood at Rs 4,874 crore against a loss of Rs 4,882 crore in Q4 2018-19. “We are delivering on our strategy, although benefits are not yet visible in topline… We are well on track to deliver synergy targets by Q1 of 2020-21,” Balesh Sharma, CEO of Vodafone-Idea, said.