Jio Financial Services Ltd (JFS) shares drop 2 per cent in Friday’s trade after rising over a per cent in the previous session. The demerged entity of Reliance Industries Ltd saw a net subscriber addition for the 18th consecutive month in August, up 32 lakh in August, TRAI data showed.

Jio Financial shares fell 2.02 per cent to hit a low of Rs 222.40 on BSE. The scrip is flat in the last month.

Jio Financial said its active subscriber additions were a tad lower at 12 lakh crore. The rise in Jio’s net subscriber additions were against a monthly addition of 7 lakh-39 lakh since March 2022.

“Earlier Jio had reported a net subscriber loss of 37 lakh/93 LAKH/1.29 crore/1.9 crore in February 2022, January 2022, December 2021 and September 2021 due to sim consolidation post the November 2021 tariff hike and repurposing of customer retention efforts for low-ARPU subscribers. Jio’s active subscriber also rose by 12 lakh in August, however, the pace of addition continued to slow down,” said JM Financial said.

The brokerage said Jio’s VLR ratio further declined slightly month on month to 93.6 per cent in August against 94 per cent in July and its peak of 94.5 per cent in June 2023. This is against 99.8 per cent for Bharti Airtel Ltd and 87.3 per cent for Vodafone Idea Ltd.

“Jio added 3.2mn subscribers in August, down from the 39 lakhs added in July. This is the 17th straight month of highest subscriber addition for Jio; its VLR base grew by only 1.2mn MoM, as its VLR proportion was down MoM at 93.6 per cent in August from 94 per cent in July. Kolkata and Madhya Pradesh were the main contributors to the VLR increase, while Maharashtra and West Bengal were the major laggards,” Emkay Global said.

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