TRAI Data: Reliance Jio adds 10.5 million mobile subscribers in October

Mukesh Ambani owned Reliance Jio has added 10.5 million mobile phone users in October, followed by State-run telecom operator BSNL, as per the data released by TRAI.

Both Reliance Jio and BSNL jointly added over 10.8 million, while incumbents such as Vodafone Idea, Bharti Airtel, Tata Teleservices, MTNL and Reliance Communications -- lost more than 1.01 crore customers in October.

"Virtual Network Operator (VNO) of BSNL has started reporting of its subscribers in the month of October 2018 and the same has been included in the subscriber number of BSNL," the data said.

TRAI said that Vodafone Idea lost 73.61 lakh, mobile subscribers, Airtel 18.64 lakh, Tata Teleservices lost 9.25 lakh, MTNL 8,068 and RCom 3,831 customers.

According to TRAI data, the number of telephone subscribers in India increased from 1,191.40 million at the end of September to 1,192.04 million at the end of October, thereby showing a monthly growth rate of 0.05 percent.

Meanwhile, total wireless subscribers (GSM, CDMA & LTE) increased from 1,169.29 million to 1,170.02 million durinf=g same periods, thereby registering a monthly growth rate of 0.06 percent.

The data pointed out that out of the total wireless subscribers (1,170.02 million), 1,021.73 million wireless subscribers were active on the date of peak VLR in the month of Oct-18. The proportion of active wireless subscribers was approximately 87.33 percent of the total wireless subscriber base.

Wireline subscribers further declined from 22.11 million at the end of Sep-18 to 22.02 million at the end of Oct-18. The net decline in the wireline subscriber base was 0.09 million with a monthly decline rate of 0.40 percent.

The share of urban and rural subscribers in total wireline subscribers was 85.74 percent and 14.26 percent respectively at the end of October-18.