Reliance Jio, the country’s largest telecom operator by market share, continued to top wireless subscriber additions for the ninth straight month in December, largely on account of churn of subscribers from Vodafone Idea. During the month, the telecom operator added 1.71 million new wireless subscribers on a net basis. Peer Bharti Airtel added 1.53 million subscribers — its highest addition in the last nine months, according to data from Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).
Comparatively, Vodafone Idea has lost subscribers for 21 straight months. In December, the telecom operator lost 2.47 million subscribers. Analysts attribute the loss of subscribers to poor quality network and weak network spends.
Despite the new subscribers, India’s total mobile subscriber base fell by 0.12 million in December, continuing its decline for the fourth straight month, according to Trai data. The total mobile user base was at 1.14 billion at the end of December.
The reason for the fall can largely be attributed to cleaning of inactive subscribers and SIM card consolidation owing to inflationary pressures, according to analysts. SIM card consolidation refers to consumers reducing mobile connections owing to issues like affordability of tariffs.
The churn in December continued to be led by users in rural areas, where the subscription fell by 0.5 million to 515.89 million. The urban subscriber base rose by 0.4 million to 627.03 million.
As per Trai data, all service areas barring Kerala, Haryana, West Bengal, Gujarat, Bihar, UP (East), UP (West), and Himachal Pradesh showed growth in wireless subscribers.
As of December-end, Reliance Jio has a wireless subscriber market share of 37.14%, up from 36.99% in November. The company’s total wireless subscribers rose to 424.5 million. In comparison, Bharti Airtel’s market share rose to 32.16% from 32.03%, whereas Vodafone Idea’s share fell to 21.11% from 21.33% recorded in November.
The wireless subscriber base of Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea was at 367.6 million and 241.3 million, respectively at the end of December. State-owned BSNL lost wireless subscribers for the 12th straight month, with a fall of 0.89 million in December. BSNL’s total subscriber base as of December-end was 106.6 million.
In the wireline segment, Jio continues to lead. The operator added 0.29 million subscribers, followed by Bharti Airtel at 0.14 million. As of December-end, Jio’s total wireline subscriber base was at 8.4 million, whereas that of Airtel was at 6.78 million.
During the month, BSNL added 13,189 users in the wireline segment, after having lost the consumers for the previous four months. As of December-end, the company’s total base of wireline users was at 7.1 million.
According to Trai, in December, 12.49 million subscribers submitted requests for Mobile Number Portability (MNP). “The cumulative MNP requests increased from 771.94 million at the end of November-22 to 784.43 million at the end of December-22, since implementation of MNP,” Trai said.
In December, the total number of active mobile users rose by 8.6 million, which is the highest in 10 months. Of the total 1.143 billion wireless subscribers, 1.02 billion or 89.32% were active, according to the peak visitor location register, which shows the number of active subscribers, including those roaming on a mobile operator’s network.
Reliance Jio’s active users rose by 2.97 million to 390.9 million. The company’s visitor location register rose to 92.1% from 91.77% in November.
Bharti Airtel remained at top with the highest visitor location register subscribers among the telecom players at 99.29%. The company’s active subscriber base rose by six million to reach 364.99 million as of December-end. For Bharti Airtel, this growth was the highest in nearly two years.
Vodafone Idea’s active subscribers fell for the ninth straight month in December. The company’s active subscriber base fell by 0.12 million to 209.59 million.
The number of wireless broadband subscribers in the country rose by 6.2 million in December to 798.69 million. The wireless broadband user base that largely includes those on the 4G network, saw the highest growth in 17 months. Bharti Airtel added 3.76 million wireless broadband users in December, taking its subscriber base to 228.76 million. Vodafone Idea added 0.40 million wireless broadband users in December, taking its subscribers base to 123.87 million.