RIL surges 4%, adds Rs 22,000 crore in m-cap after Jio beats Airtel, Idea in monthly subscriber addition

Shares of Mukesh Ambani-controlled Reliance Industries Ltd surged nearly 4% on Tuesday emerging as the top gainers on BSE Sensex after Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd outperformed India’s largest telecom company Bharti Airtel Ltd and Idea Cellular Ltd in monthly subscriber addition in the month of February. According to the data released by the telecom regulator TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) on Tuesday, Reliance Jio Infocomm added about 87.4 lakh new subscribers in February. Notably, Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular garnered 85.7 lakh new subscribers out of which Airtel added 42 lakh and Idea added 44 lakh, new customers, respectively.

Following the top-notch additions in subscriber base of Reliance Jio Infocomm, shares of Reliance Industries Ltd jumped more than 4% intraday. The stock of Reliance Industries gained as much as 4.2% to a day’s top of Rs 974.5 before settling up 3.7% at Rs 969.75 on BSE. A higher trading volume was seen in the shares of Reliance Industries Ltd, as at the closing, more than 95 lakh equity shares exchanged hands on both NSE and BSE with about 91 lakh on NSE alone.

Following the surge in the share prices of Reliance Industries, the company added about Rs 21,919.5 crore in the market capitalisation. As at the closing on Tuesday, Reliance Industries commands a market capitalisation of Rs 6,14,347.31 crore as against Rs 5,92,427.82 crore on the basis of Monday’s closing price of Rs 935.15. While, on the other hand, shares of Bharti Airtel concluded 0.61% higher at 406.1 ahead of the fourth-quarter earnings release due later today and Idea Cellular shares finished 0.77% lower at Rs 71.1 on BSE.

“The number of telephone subscribers in India increased from 1,175.01 million at the end of Jan-18 to 1,179.83 million at

the end of Feb-18, thereby showing a monthly growth rate of 0.41%,” TRAI said in a statement. As on 28 February 2018, Bharti Airtel has 25.6% wireless market share, while Reliance Jio had 15.3%. Moreover, the top five wireless broadband service providers were Reliance Jio Infocomm (177.13 million), Bharti Airtel (78.07 million), Vodafone (55.54 million), Idea Cellular (38.52 million) and BSNL (11.71 million).

Reliance Industries Limited (RIL)