India’s third largest telecom operator Vodafone Idea’s active subscribers loss in May was the highest in six months, data by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India showed on Tuesday. During the month, the company’s active user base declined by 1.77 million to 205.3 million.The reason for Vodafone Idea to lose subscribers can be attributed to lower spends on the network in absence of the fundraise, according to analysts. Overall, the telecom operator lost mobile subscribers for the 26th straight month. It lost 2.8 million mobile subscribers during the month, taking its total base to 230.94 million as of May end.The decrease in VLR (visitor location register) base for Vodafone Idea can be attributed to Gujarat and Mumbai, whereas Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh (East) reported an increase in their base, brokerage Emkay Global said.
Visitor location register shows the number of active subscribers, including those roaming on a mobile operator’s network. Vodafone Idea VLR was at 88.8% during the month.In comparison, active users for telcos Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio rose by 2.4 million and 4.9 million active subscribers, respectively. The overall mobile subscribers base of Airtel and Jio rose by 1.3 million and 3 million, respectively. Airtel’s mobile subscriber base was at 372.31, wherein all its subscribers were active during the month, whereas Jio’s subscribers base was at 436.31 million. Growth in subscriber base for Airtel and Jio is because of churn in users by Vodafone Idea.Of the total 1.143 billion subscribers, 1.043 billion or 91.27% 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. The total subscriber base during the month rose by 73,811 users.
State-owned BSNL lost wireless subscribers for the 17th straight month. In May, the company lost 1.5 million wireless subscribers, taking its total base to 101.4 million. Similarly, the company’s active subscribers base also fell by nearly 500,000 subscribers to 52.7 million.As of May-end, Reliance Jio has a wireless subscribers’ market share of 38.17%, up from 37.9% in April. In comparison, Bharti Airtel’s market share rose to 32.57% from 32.45% in April, whereas Vodafone Idea’s share fell to 20.2% from 20.45% in the wireless subscribers’ segment. As per the TRAI data, barring Uttar Pradesh (East), Kerala, Gujarat, West Bengal, Punjab, Haryana, Kolkata, and Tamil Nadu, all other service areas have shown growth in their wireless subscribers during May.
In urban areas, the overall mobile subscriber fell marginally to 626.26 million, whereas the rural subscriber base rose to 516.95 million from 516.39 million.In May, 11.47 million subscribers submitted their requests for Mobile Number Portability (MNP). “With this, the cumulative MNP requests increased from 830.65 million at the end of April to 842.12 million at the end of May, since implementation of MNP,” Trai said.
With regard to the 4G subscriber base, the three telecom operators added 5.15 million 4G users, according to Trai data. Vodafone Idea added only 0.01 million 4G subscribers during the month. 4G subscriber additions for Airtel and Jio came on the back of the shift in the subscriber base from 2G as well as loss of subscribers by Vodafone Idea, according to analysts.Since Jio’s network is completely on 4G from the start, its 4G subscriber addition is the same as that of total additions. Airtel added 2.10 million 4G subscribers, taking its total 4G subscribers to 240.21 million. Vodafone Idea’s 4G subscriber base was at 123.58 million as of May-end. The total 4G subscriber base of the three telcos rose to nearly 800 million.
In the wireline segment, Jio continues to take the lead. The operator added 325,336 subscribers, taking its total base to over 9.7 million.
Airtel’s wireline subscriber base at the end of May was at 7.4 million, whereas BSNL’s subscriber base in the segment was at 6.5 million. During the month, BSNL lost 475,708 users in the wireline segment, whereas Airtel added 125,586 users.
In March, Airtel pipped BSNL to become the second-largest fixed line or wireline service provider. In the wireline segment, telephone and broadband internet services are provided through a network of cables.