Reliance Jio vs Bharti Airtel — four charts that showcase how the Indian telecom giants faired in 2022

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Reliance Jio vs Bharti Airtel — four charts that showcase how the Indian telecom giants faired in 2022
  • Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel have been competing to gain the maximum market share in the Indian telecom industry.
  • Reliance Jio Platforms and Bharti Airtel earned ₹2,12,885 crore cumulatively through telecom operations as well as other sources.
  • Despite higher average revenue per user, Airtel’s annual profit only double of Jio’s quarterly profit in FY2022.
Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel have been competing against each other to gain the highest market share in the Indian telecom industry - an industry which was shook by Mukesh Ambani’s entry into it in 2016.

The sector went through its share of upheavals - the most recent being the Supreme Court verdict on AGR issue which stressed the financials of Vodafone Idea and Airtel alike. While the latter rode the storm, Vodafone Idea lost market share during the months — leaving a large piece of subscriber share up for grabs.

The next few charts explain how these two telecom majors fared in the fiscal year 2022.

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Reliance Retail, Airtel clocked $27 billion in revenue

Reliance Retail, Airtel clocked $27 billion in revenue
BI India

Overall, Reliance Jio Platforms and Bharti Airtel earned ₹2.12 lakh crore (over $27 billion, at current conversion rate). Notably, the revenue was not only earned through telecom operations but also other sources, both operational and non-operations.

The data depicted includes earnings coming from Airtel’s Digital TV Services, home services and much more. It also includes everything under the Reliance Jio Platforms, an umbrella entity for all digital businesses of Reliance including JioSaavn, JioMeet, JioTV, MyJio and more.

As the data showcased above suggests, Bharti Airtel has an edge over Reliance Jio Platforms that was spun off into a separate entity in 2019.

Airtel’s annual profit was just double of Jio’s quarterly

Airtel’s annual profit was just double of Jio’s quarterly
BI India

Reliance Jio Platforms definitely took the lead with a profit of a whopping ₹15,487 crore or $1.9 billion for FY21. The Mukesh Ambani-led company also reported a profit of ₹12,534 crore ($1.6 billion) last year.


Airtel, on the other hand, managed to turn its loss of ₹12,364 crore ($1.5 billion) in FY20 to a profit of ₹8,305 crore ($1 billion) in FY21. Airtel’s annual net profit is almost double of Jio’s net profit for January to March quarter of 2022 — which was at ₹4,313 crore.
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Jio is performing better than Airtel in terms of subscribers but only in India

Jio is performing better than Airtel in terms of subscribers but only in India
BI India

Bharti Airtel is present in 16 countries across South Asia and Africa. The company has a customer base of 491 million users across these 16 countries, out of which 360 million are from India. If data of all the 16 countries is to be considered then Airtel has had more customers than Reliance Jio.

Jio telecom service currently only has a presence in India, anda it has been losing its subscriber base since June 2021. According to Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Reliance Jio has the highest market share among the wireless service providers at 35%, while Airtel has a 31.56% market share.

Airtel still makes more money per user

Airtel still makes more money per user
BI India

The average revenue per user (ARPU) has been higher for Bharti Airtel for quite some time. Even in the January to March quarter, Airtel was earning ₹10.4 rupees more than Reliance Jio per user.

This also may be because Jio’s tariffs are still cheapest among the three biggest players in the domain — Airtel and VI. The June ending quarter for 2022 may however present a different picture, since analysts at JP Morgan expect the benefits from Jio’s 20-25% traffic hike to flow by then.

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