Reliance Jio Adds 82.6 lakh Users In June, Vodafone Idea Loses 41.45 Lakh: TRAI

According to a data report from TRAI, Reliance Jio has added over 82.6 lakh users in June, while Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea continued the rough patch losing 41.75 lakh subscribers combined during the same month.

However, Vodafone Idea (post-merger) is still leading the subscriber chart with 38.34 crore consumers in the wireless segment followed by Jio with 33.12 crores and Bharti Airtel with 32.03 crores. Besides, the state-run operator BSNL gained 2.66 lakh users in June, despite the financial crisis.

Both Vodafone Idea and Airtel, which introduced minimum recharge schemes last year to improve financials, have seen their subscriber base erode in the past few months. But the pace of subscriber loss appears to have slowed down in June. Vodafone Idea lost 56.97 lakh subscribers, while Bharti Airtel lost 15.08 lakh users in May.

Meanwhile, the number of telephone subscribers in India has increased from 1,183.15 million at the end of May 2019 to 1,186.63 million at the end of June 2019, thereby showing a monthly growth rate of 0.29 percent. While total wireless subscribers (GSM, CDMA & LTE) increased from 1,161.86 million to 1,165.46 million during the same period, thereby registering a monthly growth rate of 0.31 percent.

On the other hand, wireless subscription in urban areas increased from 656.27 million to 657.27 million and 505.59 million to 508.19 million in rural areas. The data also pointed out that the private operators held 89.73 percent market share of the wireless subscribers, whereas, BSNL and MTNL, the two PSU access service providers, had a market share of only 10.27 percent in June.

Furthermore, TRAI listed the top five wired broadband service providers. They were BSNL (9.05 million users ), Bharti Airtel (2.40 million users ), Atria Convergence Technologies (1.45 million users), Hathway Cable & Datacom (0.84 million users ) and MTNL (0.74 million users ).

There is no doubt that Jio shook the telecom industry with free voice calls and dirt cheap data in 2016. Within three years of its operations, it became the largest telecom player in the market by revenue. However, all telecom players are trying to cope up with ongoing tariff war, but are somehow unable to give tough competition to Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio.