The news of the merger of Vodafone India and Idea Cellular gained high popularity among the business community in August, 2018. The merger indicated a better cash flow and a widespread coverage area; raising the combined subscriber base of the entity stood to 441.65 million (37.85% market share). During the same time, the subscriber base of Bharti Airtel was 345.88 million (29.64% market share) while that of Reliance Jio was 239.23 million (20.50% market share). BSNL’s wireless share was 9.73%.
Since the merger that occurred 2 years ago, the entitiy has lost around 116.13 million subscribers down rating the company to the 3rd position. In the meanwhile, Reliance Jio has garnered a wireless market share of 32.99% by adding additional 6.25 mn subscribers, followed by Airtel at 28.35% who attracted additional 922,946 subscribers and Vodafone Idea’s 28.05%. BSNL’s share increased to 10.32%.
Some of the reasons which contributed to Jio’ 100 m sprint of successfully posting a profit of Rs. 2,331 crore in the March, 2020 quarter is due to its pricing policy and its aggressive marketing techniques which has belittled the competitors.
According to a forecast by brokerage firm Axis Capital; Vodafone-Ideal Ltd. (VIL) loss after tax for the Q4 of 2019-20 is expected to fall to Rs. 4,268 Cr. from 5,805 Cr. in the previous 3-month period, on likely quarterly consolidated revenue of Rs. 11,494 Cr., up 3.6%.
