March 2nd 2021

Airtel offers its subscribers the best mobile experience in India, according to Tutela’s latest 2021 State of Mobile Experience report on the country. Airtel dominated in four of the six metrics tested -  most importantly the operator had the  highest Excellent Consistent Quality at 56.6%, Tutela’s metric for subscribers’ mobile experience for demanding applications such as 1080p video streaming, real-time mobile gaming and HD video calling. Airtel also had the highest Core Consistent Quality (representative of day-to-day activities like web browsing, SD video streaming or photo sharing over social media) at 83.7%, as well as the fastest download speeds and most responsive network.

Vodafone Idea (VI)  got onto the leaderboard with the fastest median upload speed in Common Coverage Areas across India with 5.2 Mbps, although not without strong competition from Airtel, with only 0.7 Mbps separating the two. 

Jio, despite placing third in the other metrics tested, won in a new category recently added to Tutela’s reports: the operator had the best total coverage in India, meaning the total coverage on any connection technology in terms of the relative observed area covered for its subscribers compared to the other operators, with a score of 595. 

Tutela has evaluated over 31 million speed and latency tests in India taken from smartphones, collected between August 1st 2020 and January 31st, 2021, to provide insight into the average mobile experience on each of India’s top four providers. 

Key findings from this report include:

• Airtel established its dominance among Indian operators winning first place in four out of the six categories that were tested. The operator had the highest Excellent Consistant Quality at 56.6% as well as the highest Core Consistent Quality of 83.7% in Common Coverage areas across the country. Airtel also outperformed other operators for median download speeds and latency. 
• Vodafone Idea (now known as Vi) took the lead in the upload throughput category with a median upload speed of 5.2 ms. It was closely followed by Airtel with a median upload speed of 4.5 ms.
• Jio, which ranked third behind Airtel and Vodafone Idea in five out of six categories, came first in the coverage category. There was a significant difference in the relative area covered between first placed Jio with a total coverage score of 595 and last-placed BSNL Mobile’s score of 316 with latter heavily dependent on 3G. 

Tom Luke, VP at Tutela, said: “India’s operators continue to impress us with their results, particularly with Airtel dominating in four of the six metrics tested, but also with Vodafone Idea and Jio putting up a strong fight in two other categories tested. Although deployment of 5G may come around slower than other countries, we are impressed with how well 4G technology is utilized in the country for its customers and are confident 5G will be embraced once ready.”

The full report is available here.