Reliance Jio gained 3.15 million users in October, shows Trai data

Reliance Jio continued to strengthen its position in the Indian telecom market, gaining 3.15 million new users in October, according to the latest data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai). This was, however, lower than the 3.47 million user additions in September and the record 3.9 million users the company had acquired in July.

The company’s growth has continued to come largely at the expense of the state-owned operator BSNL for more than a year now. However, BSNL’s subscriber loss slowed to 0.63 million subscribers in October, after two consecutive months of more than 2 million decline.

Vodafone Idea (Vi), which has been experiencing significant customer attrition for the past 19 months, saw 2.04 million users leave their service, much more than the 0.74 million who left the company in the previous month. While the level of churn had reduced in August, when the company had lost just 49,782 users, subscriber losses have escalated since then.

Bharti Airtel, the second-largest player in the market, saw its subscriber count increase by 0.35 million, much lower than the 1.32 million users the company added in September.

In October, Jio’s subscriber market share inched up to 39.3 per cent, while Airtel maintained its 32.85 per cent share and Vi’s market share further slid to 19.59 per cent. This was the third consecutive month the company has registered less than a 20 per cent national share. BSNL had a market share of 8.08 per cent.

The overall number of mobile phone connections in India increased by 0.83 million in October, slower than the 1.72 million, 2.18 million, and 2.67 million increases in the previous three months. The latest addition was the slowest since July when 0.37 million new users joined.

TRAI data revealed that 12.72 million subscribers had submitted requests for Mobile Number Portability (MNP) in October, as compared to 12.65 million in the previous month.

First Published: Jan 04 2024 | 7:45 PM IST