Reliance Jio Now Has 355.2 Million Subscribers, Adding 24 Million in a Quarter

Reliance Jio financial and operational performance figures were released as part of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) Q3 quarterly earnings results on Friday. The figures were for the three-month period ending September 30, with the company noting a subscriber base of 355.2 million - a net addition of 24 million since the last quarter, and a significant jump on its 'over 340 million subscribers' figure announced in August at the company's annual general meeting (AGM). The RIL earnings results also detailed performance across other Jio operational metrics, such as average revenue per user (ARPU), churn rate, as well as total voice and data traffic.

As mentioned, Reliance Jio reported that its subscriber base at the end of September was 355.2 million - a big jump from both its last earnings results ended June 30, when it had announced 331.3 million subscriber base, and the figure announced in August at the 2019 AGM. The company said it is now the second largest single-country operator globally. Net additions from the last quarter stood at 24 million, with gross additions of 31.6 million. The company is calling a 40.8 percent growth year-on-year, as it added 103 million subscribers in the past 12 months.

Once again, for subscriber churn rate, Jio said it has the lowest churn in the industry at 0.74 percent per month. In its earnings report, Jio said its ARPU for the quarter was Rs. 120 per subscriber per month, down from Rs. 122 the previous quarter. The total wireless data traffic in the quarter was 12.02 billion gigabytes (GB), driven by average data consumption per user per month of 11.7GB, and representing a 55.9 percent year-on-year growth. The total voice traffic was 812.62 billion minutes, thanks to an average voice consumption of 789 minutes per user per month.

Commenting on the results, Mukesh D. Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director, Reliance Industries Limited said: "Jio crossed the 350 million subscriber mark to remain the world's fastest growing digital services company, and we are still adding more than 10 million new customers every month. Jio is not only India's largest telecom enterprise in terms of subscribers and revenues but has also become the Digital Gateway of India."

The company in its earnings results added that the Jio Phone Diwali 2019 offer (marketed by Reliance Retail) that offered the feature phone at Rs. 699 had "witnessed a strong response in [the] first few weeks."