Reliance Jio added 42.2 lakh new mobile customers in the month of June, consolidating its past month gains. In contrast, Bharti Airtel only added 7.9 lakh customers. Meanwhile Vodafone Idea continued its losing streak as it lost 18 lakh users, according to the data released by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). With the gains in the month, Jio’s total wireless subscriber count as on 30 June 2022 stood at 41.3 crore, while Airtel and Vodafone Idea had 36.2 crore and 25.6 crore users respectively. Bharti Airtel share price jumped 3%, while Vodafone-Idea shares fell half a per cent on NSE intraday.
Jio, Bharti Airtel, VI, BSNL and Atria Convergence constitute 98% market share
Telephone subscribers in India increased from 117 crore at the end of May 2022 to 117.2 crore at the end of June 2022, thereby showing a monthly growth rate of 0.19 per cent. Top five service providers constituted 98.47 per cent market share of the total broadband subscribers at the end of June 2022. These service providers were Reliance Jio Infocomm (41.91 crore), Bharti Airtel (21.94 crore), Vodafone Idea (12.29 crore), BSNL (2.5 crore) and Atria Convergence (21.1 lakh).
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2nd consecutive growth month for Reliance Jio
Note that this was the second consecutive growth month for Reliance Jio which had added 31 lakh new wireless customers in the month of May. The company had lost subscribers for nine months till March-end but reported gains in the first quarter FY23. The Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries’ telecom arm had earlier attributed drop in users to SIM consolidation and cleanup of low tariff users.
Wireless, wireline users increase
Total wireless subscribers in the country increased from 114.55 crore to 114.73 crore in the same period, registering a monthly growth of 0.16%, according to the TRAI data. As on 30 June, the private access service providers held 90% market share of the wireless subscribers whereas PSU access service providers BSNL and MTNL had a market share of only 10%.
The wireline (fixed line) subscriber base grew to 2.55 crore in June from 2.52 crore in May with private players fuelling the growth. Reliance Jio led the chart by adding 2.4 lakh new fixed line customers. It was followed by Vodafone Idea which added 84,760 new customers, Bharti Airtel 59,289 and Quadrant added 7,378 new customers.
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