Reliance Jio Lost 36 Lakh Users In 30 Days Even As 15 Lakh New Users Joined Airtel!

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has released data which shows that the country’s overall subscriber base declined to 116.6 crore in February- a monthly decline rate of 0.29%.

Jio and Vodafone Idea both suffered customer losses. 

Overview

Airtel turned out to be the only net gainer.

The number of fixed-line users was on the rise and private telcos gained market share while public telcos BSNL and MTNL lost subscribers.

Mobile subscriber base declined across the country except in three circles — Uttar Pradesh East, Jammu & Kashmir, and Haryana.

Jio’s Slump

Jio’s woes continued as February was the third straight month that it lost market share.

It lost 36.6 lakh mobile subscribers, taking its total wireless subscriber base to 40.27 crore.

Vodafone Idea lost 15.32 lakh users while BSNL and MTNL lost 1.11 lakh and 5,097 such customers, respectively.

Airtel meanwhile added 15.91 lakh new customers in February.

Growth In Wireless Subscriber Base

Private telcos are driving the growth in the wireline subscriber base which started growing after the first wave of the pandemic.

TRAI reported that net increase in the wireline subscriber base was 0.31 million with a monthly growth rate of 1.27%.

The number of wireline subscribers at the end of February 2022 stood at 24.52 million.

Public Telcos Underperform

Jio led the growth in this segment with an addition of 2.44 lakh customers.

It was trailed by Airtel which added 91,243 customers, Vodafone Idea (24,948), Quadrant (18,622) and Tata Teleservices (3,772)

Government-owned BSNL and MTNL jointly command a 49.5% share in the segment.

However, they lost 49,074 and 21,900 fixed-line customers, respectively.

Overall broadband subscriber base declined marginally from 78.34 crore in January to 78.33 crore in February.

The Big 5 

At the end of February 2022, 98.5% market share of the total broadband subscribers was held by 5 service providers.

These are:

• Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. (40.77 crore)
• Bharti Airtel (21.31 crore)
• Vodafone Idea (12.19 crore)
• BSNL (2.67 crore) 
• Atria Convergence (20.6 lakh)