Why is Jio winning the "Airtel" war?📱
The ARPU game is going strong.
Welcome to the 168th edition of the GrowthX Newsletter. Every Tuesday & Thursday I write a piece on startups & business growth. Today’s piece is going to 95,300+ operators & leaders from startups like Google, Stripe, Swiggy, Razorpay, CRED & more
Airtel made ₹193 / monthly subscriber 💸
Jio made ₹178 /monthly subscriber 💰
Here's why Jio is winning with profits ⬇️
Let's go back to 2016 🗓
Jio launched & within first 12 months reached 13 crores monthly subscribers with it's free plan. Everyone was skeptical, including me, about how Jio will ever make enough money per subscriber.
Fast forward 2023 ⚡️
Jio made ₹18,207 Cr profits with a 44 Cr monthly subscribers & almost 92% average revenue per user compared to it's biggest rival - Bharti Airtel which sits at 51 Cr subscribers & ₹8,346 Cr profits for the same duration.
So what's really working for Jio? ⬇️
This is an interesting rabbit hole.
1/ The right go to market 🎯
Jio launched as a free sim card & then pivoted to making all voice calls absolutely free and only charging for data consumption. No wonder it got 1.6 Cr subscribers in the first month.
2/ Aadhar led onboarding 💙
Jio questioned everything that conventional telecom operators did as a process. It removed the paperwork completely and made all new customer onboarding at a "fingerprint" + AadharID. Huge delta.
3/ Solving for data consumption loops 🔁
Once you charge for data, you have to increase data usage of your customers. Bundling with OTTs (Netflix + Prime Video) increased data consumption through the roof. Plus, 4G speeds helped.
5/ Kept building for Bharat 🇮🇳
The super low internet pricing created the market & improved internet penetration & ofcourse subscribers. From 2016's 16.5% internet penetration to 48.7% in 2023 is mind bending.
6/ Expanded to high price offerings 🕹
Starting Jio fibre was the beast - it created a higher starting price point of ₹399 & moved the overall average revenue per user. No wonder almost 25%(₹4,716) of overall profits come from Jio Fibre.
7/ Extreme focus on retention ⚒
Jio's monthly churn is ~2% and net churn is negative - the active base has grown from 38 Cr in 2020 to almost 1.15X in the last 3 years.
What's next for Jio, really? 📺🏏⚽️
Jio has bagged exclusive streaming rights for the IPL for the next 5 years, this alone with the Jio Ecosystem of apps (JioCinema, JioSaavan) will bring in the next share of market for the coglomorate.
That's all for now 💙
Jio used pricing as the lever to enter the market but it has stuck to business fundamentals really well. It has created insane value creation before capturing that value through pricing. Something that every startup pushing pricing right/left/centre need to learn from Jio. We talk about this in the monetisation deep dive.
Are you building a long game? 🥅
Strong revenue lines is the key and at GrowthX® we have built the science to revenue led growth. Over 1,800 businesses have figured it in the last 3 years. Trust me, there’s only upside to getting into the rabbit hole HERE.
Famwins shoutout 🥳
When Sumedha (Ex- Head of Brand MPL & GrowthX member since 2023) was contemplating her next career move, she knew what she wanted - a broader charter, the chance to create something from scratch, hunger for impact & an industry that was growing.
The learnings, the conversations and the infinite help from the GrowthX experience helped her crack a Head of marketing role at Ampverse (Asia’s largest ecosystem of gaming communities), a $15 million+ revenue company. This is her story of inflection 👇🏻
Thank you for supporting this newsletter 🪄
We spend a sizable portion of our time writing pieces for this newsletter. Share it with your closed circle / Twitter if you find it interesting.
