Bharti Airtel leads 5G speeds, Reliance Jio tops in 4G in June: Opensignal
NEW DELHI:
Bharti Airtel
continued to retain its leadership in the
5G
upload and download speed metrics in June, compared to its closest rival
Reliance Jio
, while third-ranked Vodafone Ide (Vi) is already competing with the larger telecom carriers in terms of
5G availability
in select circles, networking testing firm
Opensignal
said on Wednesday.
It, however, cautioned that Jio and Airtel's 5G download speeds are reducing, pointing to a slowdown in their latest-generation networks.
Airtel's users recorded an average 5G upload speed of 22.6Mbps in June, which dropped by about 1Mbps compared to October 2024, while Jio's average 5G upload speed increased by 2Mbps to 15.1Mbps during the same period.
Airtel's average 5G download speed decreased by 28Mbps since October 2024 to 212Mbps in June, whereas Jio's fell by 21Mbps to 204Mbps in the same period.
'There are further signs that India's established 5G networks — Airtel's and Jio's — are slowing down, as their 5G download scores have fallen,' said Peter Boyland, principal analyst at Opensignal.
He attributed the decline in 5G download speeds to an increase in network congestion led by an acceleration in 5G adoption and a rise in data consumption per 5G subscriber.
Jio, however, topped the average 4G upload speed chart with 9.1Mbps, ahead of Airtel's 9Mbps. In average 4G download speeds, Jio again took the lead with 106.3Mbps compared to Airtel's 58.6Mbps.
'Jio achieves a clean sweep of our overall availability, 5G availability, consistent quality and reliability experience awards. Airtel saw the greatest increase in 5G availability, but Jio remains well ahead in this metric,' Boyland said in the report.
'All four of India's operators saw double-digit percentage growth in their download speed experience scores. Jio keeps hold of the award for this metric, and deserves particular recognition for topping the 100Mbps milestone for the first time in our reports,' he added.
The findings are based on a study of all four Indian telcos for 90 days, starting on February 1, 2025, and ending on May 1, 2025, to see how they fared.
Over 300 mn 5G users in India
Both Jio and Airtel cumulatively have over 300 million unique 5G subscribers.
Gopal Vittal, vice chairman & managing director of Bharti Airtel, at the company's Q4FY25 post-earnings conference call, said that Airtel has 135 million 5G subscribers, and the telecom operator continues to capture its 'fair share' of the 5G device market.
As per market trackers, 5G devices now represent 85% of the total smartphone shipments.
Anshuman Thakur, head of strategy at Reliance Jio Infocomm, at Reliance Industries' Q4FY25 post-earnings call had said that Jio now has 191 million 5G subscribers, the largest base outside China, and the telecom carrier is also the world's-largest data company in overall data consumption and continues to be ahead of companies from China, including China Mobile.
'5G traffic as a percentage of total traffic has been growing, so we are now at 45% of total wireless traffic is on 5G,' Thakur said.
'Vi shows regional 5G gains, BSNL improves too'
Vi, which has been losing subscribers to Jio and Airtel, commenced 5G services in Mumbai, Delhi, Chandigarh and Patna in March this year and plans to commercially roll-out its 5G services in 17 priority circles by August.
Opensignal found that Vi is already neck-and neck with Airtel for 5G availability, but trails in 5G download and upload speeds.
5G availability refers to the proportion of time users with a 5G device and subscription have an active 5G connection.
'Nevertheless, in Mumbai, our Vi users see the greatest uplift out of the three 5G operators when comparing 5G download speed scores against those for overall download speed experience,' Boyland said.
Vi's average 5G download speeds are more than four times faster than its overall speeds, the network testing firm found.
State-controlled Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), the only non-5G operator, saw a more-than-double increase in its download and upload speeds. 'However, the operator remains some distance behind its rivals across all of our metrics, and will have to work hard to close this gap,' Boyland added.
The analyst added that there is barely any difference among the three telcos in terms of 5G video experience, 5G live video experience and 5G games experience metrics.
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