Bharti Airtel widened its lead over Reliance Jio on key value metrics in the June quarter, with its sustained premiumisation strategy receiving a further boost from the recently launched Fastlane offering that is accelerating upgrades to higher-value postpaid plans.
Airtel reported an average revenue per user (Arpu) of Rs 264 in the June quarter, up Rs 7 or 2.7% sequentially. In comparison, Jio’s Arpu rose to Rs 215.6 from Rs 214 in the March quarter, an increase of Rs 1.6 or 0.7%.
Subscriber additions, however, continued to favour Jio. The telecom operator added 8.9 million subscribers during the quarter to end with a base of 533.3 million, while Airtel added 3.3 million customers, taking its subscriber base to 376.5 million.
Airtel also accelerated growth in its data consumption metrics, aided by subscriber upgrades to higher-value unlimited plans. While Jio continued to dominate in absolute terms with total wireless data consumption of 69.4 billion GB during the quarter, compared with Airtel’s 31.1 billion GB, Airtel outperformed on sequential growth, with total data traffic increasing 11.1% against Jio’s 5.2%, albeit on a lower base.
On a per-user basis too, Airtel’s monthly data consumption rose 9.6% to 34.4 GB, outpacing Jio’s 3.3% growth to 43.7 GB, though Jio continued to lead in absolute usage.
Management said the sequential increase in Arpu was driven by higher data consumption, migration to higher-value unlimited plans and faster postpaid upgrades. It also credited Fastlane for accelerating postpaid upgrades, positioning the offering as a key driver of its premiumisation strategy.
Experts said the quarter underscored Airtel’s success in monetising its network investments through premiumisation, while Jio’s Arpu expansion remained comparatively muted. They noted that Jio may eventually need to introduce a differentiated premium offering or another premiumisation-led proposition to accelerate Arpu growth and narrow the gap with Airtel.
The value gap was mirrored in profitability trends. Airtel’s EBITDA rose 3.4% sequentially to Rs 24,781 crore, while net profit increased 16.5% to Rs 7,014.4 crore.
Jio’s EBITDA grew 4% sequentially to Rs 20,865 crore, marginally faster than Airtel’s, reflecting healthy operating performance. However, its net profit fell 2.2% sequentially to Rs 7,764 crore as higher network operating expenses, licence and spectrum fees, finance costs, and depreciation and amortisation weighed on earnings.