Airtel loses 1.2 million users, Jio gains 1.84 million in October: Trai
Airtel lost nearly 1.2 million active users in October 2023 as its costlier mobile services — following a sharp increase in base prepaid rates implemented nationally a year ago — may have triggered some de-activations, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).
Reliance Jio, on the other hand, added 1.84 million active users in October 2023, indicating high uptake of its low-cost internet-enabled feature phone, Jio Bharat.
Vodafone Idea (Vi) lost roughly 1.41 million active customers after announcing an unexpected 400,000 such additions in September 2023 after several months.
While Airtel’s active user base fell to 374.96 million in October 2023 — from 376.15 million in September 2023, Jio’s active user base rose to 422.11 million in October. Vi’s active user base, in turn, shrank to 198.38 million.
Visitor location register, a key metric reflecting the number of active users on a mobile network, indicated that Airtel had 99.31 per cent of its users active on the network, 93.31 per cent for Jio and 87.98 per cent for Vi.
On the gross customer additions score, Jio’s gains were significantly higher than Airtel’s in October 2023. The latest data compiled by Trai showed that Jio added 3.15 million mobile users in October, while Airtel reported a modest 350,000 additions, continuing to be weighed down by the hefty hikes taken in its base prepaid rates.
Vi continued to suffer heavy losses, resulting in its gross mobile user base shrinking by 2.04 million to 225.48 million at the end of end-October.
According to Trai data, Jio’s gross mobile customer base increased to 452.36 million in October, while Airtel’s increased slightly to 378.13 million.
The data further showed that Jio widened its customer market share to 39.3 per cent (39.06 per cent), while Airtel’s was unchanged at 32.85 per cent over the previous month. Vi’s narrowed to 19.59 per cent (19.78 per cent).
India’s mobile subscriber base
The combination of Vi’s significant customer losses and Airtel’s moderate gains resulted in India’s mobile subscriber base increasing by only 0.03 per cent to 1.150 billion at the end of October.
Overall, wireless tele-density remained steady in October 2023 at 82.54 per cent.
Jio also consolidated its market leadership in the landline segment last October. The telco added 210,000 wireline users, bringing its total landline user base to 10.67 million. Airtel, which is placed second, added 140,000 users, bringing its total wireline user base to approximately 8.07 million. Third-ranked state-owned BSNL lost another 40,926 wireline users, reducing its landline user base further to 6.2 million, Trai data showed.
First Published: Jan 04 2024 | 12:57 PM IST