New Delhi, Airtel is fast gaining ground in India when it comes to wooing new users while the industry disruptor Jio is losing customers owing to "poor network experience", a new report has revealed.According to global mobile analytics company Opensignal , data shows that until August 2020, Airtel and Jio had been steadily gaining smartphone users, and in this period, both operators were neck and neck in the net users gained. "From September onwards, when carriers once again decided to hike prices, Airtel continued to gain users until the end of the year. It is 326.6 million for Airtel and 295.5 million for Vodafone Idea The market has registered strong growth in the last decade, but it also has high churn rates birthed by carriers adopting an aggressive pricing strategy, especially after Jio's disruptive entry in 2016 that ate away the profits and forced many operators out of the market, often as a result of acquisitions. "This indicates that mobile network experience is critical to understand mobile subscriber churn in India. Operators that wish to reduce churn levels in India must segment their smartphone users' based on the quality of users' mobile network experience," the company emphasised.In September last year, Opensignal reported that Airtel has come closer to challenging Reliance Jio which continues to reign supreme on 4G availability and 4G coverage experience in India.

Source: Economic Times February 25, 2021 02:52 UTC