Summary:
India’s telecom market is increasingly being shaped by two different strategies, with Bharti Airtel focusing on higher monetisation and premium users, while Reliance Jio continues driving large-scale subscriber and network growth. Jio maintained its leadership in subscriber base, data consumption and 5G expansion during FY26, while Airtel stayed ahead in monetisation with a higher ARPU of Rs 257 compared to Jio’s Rs 214. The companies’ differing priorities were clearly reflected in their Q4FY26 earnings commentary, with Jio emphasising scale, broadband and AirFiber growth, and Airtel concentrating on premiumisation and improving revenue per user.
India’s telecom sector is increasingly evolving around two contrasting approaches, with Bharti Airtel concentrating on improving value realisation while Reliance Jio continues strengthening its scale and network leadership.
This strategic divide is reflected not only in the companies’ operational performance but also in the priorities highlighted by both management teams during their Q4FY26 earnings discussions.
Breaking Down the Numbers
Jio continues to dominate in terms of subscriber scale. The company closed FY26 with 524.4 million users, substantially ahead of Airtel’s 373.24 million subscriber base. Usage trends further reinforce Jio’s scale advantage, with average monthly data consumption per user reaching 42.3 GB compared to Airtel’s 31.4 GB. Overall quarterly data traffic on Jio’s network touched 66 billion GB, more than twice Airtel’s 27.98 billion GB.
During the earnings interaction, Reliance Jio’s management repeatedly emphasised subscriber growth, customer engagement, broadband expansion and rising 5G adoption as its major growth drivers. The telecom operator added 36.3 million subscribers in FY26 and expanded its 5G user base to 268 million users. Growth in fixed broadband and AirFiber services also remained a central part of its expansion strategy.
“Home connectivity continues to remain a strategic focus for us. We had a strong year and have now crossed 27 million subscribers, with nearly 10 million net additions over the last 12 months. Around 75% of these additions came through AirFiber, which is scaling efficiently and performing very well,” said Anshuman Thakur during the latest Reliance Industries earnings call.
Jio has also rolled out its FWA services using UBR technology, supporting its broader objective of reaching 100 million homes.
Focus on Monetisation
Airtel, on the other hand, continues to maintain an edge in monetisation metrics. The company reported an average revenue per user (ARPU) of Rs 257 in Q4FY26, notably higher than Jio’s Rs 214. Airtel’s strategy has increasingly focused on premiumisation, encouraging customers to migrate to 4G and 5G plans while enhancing the quality of its subscriber base rather than solely pursuing aggressive subscriber growth.
“Our ARPU for the quarter stood at Rs 257, reflecting a quarterly increase of Rs 3 on an annualised basis. We are not satisfied with an ARPU increase of only Rs 3. We are now committed to intensifying all our efforts around ARPU expansion and accelerating growth further,” Airtel management stated during the fourth-quarter earnings call last week.
