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Context is everything.
Detailed stories on technology startups, business and economic current affairs.
Detailed stories on technology startups, business and economic current affairs.
Editor's note: In 2013, India had about a dozen operators serving a little over 700 million subscribers. Bharti Airtel Ltd led with a quarter of the market share. In 2016 (before Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd started services), the number of operators had reduced to eight, while the active subscribers had crossed 900 million. The Indian mobile telephony market is more consolidated now with three private operators—Airtel, Jio, and Vi (Vodafone Idea Ltd, which rebranded itself as Vi recently)—and one government operator, BSNL. We are talking a billion subscribers with Airtel and Jio controlling about a third of the market each. While Jio trampled on what could’ve been Airtel’s growth, it essentially gobbled up the erstwhile players. This consolidation has also led to market repair. A senior employee at Airtel told this writer that in 2016, the company realized that the days of pure mobile play were over. “If we continued to be a dumb pipe, we would’ve just died.” India anyway has one of the lowest ARPU (average revenue per user) in the world; in 2016, it was slightly above $2, but …
Mukesh Ambani wants investors to price Reliance Industries’ IPO-bound telecom arm like a technology business. In reality, Jio’s tech ambitions remain a work in progress.
FY26 numbers show that Airtel is stealing a march on its larger rival on most counts and is unrelenting in its ambition, casting a cloud on Jio’s valuation.
The homegrown social startup is betting big on India’s latest content obsession—minute-long episodes of high-stakes dramas. Cut through the noise and the microdrama hype itself doesn’t add up.
