Reliance Jio crosses 50 million mark in 83 days, a 12-year feat for Bharti Airtel

Mukesh Ambani-promoted Reliance Jiohas crossed the 50 million subscriber mark in less than three months after itsfull-fledged 4G services launch to emerge as the largest broadband operator inthe country.

According to sources, Jio hasacquired 1,000 customers per minute (since September 05) and 6 lakh per day."Jio continues to be the fastest growing company in the world and hascrossed 50 million subscribers in record 83 days," sources pointed out.Airtel reached the same milestone of notching 50 million subscribers in 12years, Vodafone and Idea took 13 years each. Reliance Jio Infocomm had launched its commercial services on September 5, andas per the last update had notched up 16 million users in the first month ofits operation.

The subscriber base of Jio has already reached one fifththat of Bharti Airtel, which had 262.67 million mobile subscribers in October.According to the latest data by cellular association COAI, Vodafone had 201.90million subscribers and Idea Cellular 180.25 million users. "Beatingindustry estimates, the company has signed up an average of 6 lakh subscribersa day, which is a globally unprecedented feat for any customer-facing companyincluding the likes of Whatsapp, Facebook and Skype," the source pointedout.

Sources claimed that Jio has become India's largest digitalservices operator with highest number of mobile broadband users surpassingtelecom major Airtel's 41 million 3G and 4G customers combined acquired overlast six years. Only on 4G to 4G comparison, Jio's customer base is now fivetimes that of Airtel (around 10 million subscribers); 17 times of Idea (3million subscribers).

At RIL's 42nd annual general meeting, Ambani had said hisnew telecom venture would aim to acquire 100 million customers "in theshortest possible time and create a new world record". This wouldtranslate into a data usage of 250 crore gigabyte per month, he had then said.Jio, whose controversial entry into the world's second-largest telephony marketsparked off a tariff war, had onboarded 1.5 million users on its 4G networkduring the testing phase.

It is aggressively competing with players such as BhartiAirtel and Vodafone and is offering users data services free till December 31,2016, if they buy Jio connection by December 03, 2016. From January 01, 2017the data services will become chargeable with rates starting at Rs 19 a day foroccasional data users, Rs 149 a month for low data users and Rs 4,999 a monthfor heavy data subscribers. Jio has promised to keep voice and roamingservices, free for life.