New Delhi: India's largest operator Reliance Jio continued its momentum in the telecom market adding 31.59 lakh mobile users while rival Bharti Airtel's subscriber gain came in at 3.52 lakh in October 2023, as per monthly subscriber data by TRAI. Troubled Vodafone Idea yielded further ground on the subscriber front, as it lost 20.44 lakh wireless users in October.
Overall, the industry-wide 'active' subscriber base dipped by almost 14 lakh to 104.5 crore, the data by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) showed. "TRAI's Oct-23 subscriber data indicates a continuation of muted subscriber trends, with 0.8 million wireless net adds. Vi (Vodafone Idea) continued to lose wireless subscriber market share to Bharti and R-Jio," Kotak Institutional Equities said in a note.
According to TRAI monthly data, the total wireless subscribers rose to 115 crore at the end of October, logging monthly growth of 0.07 per cent. With the addition of 31.59 lakh users, Jio's total wireless subscriber count climbed to 45.23 crore in October from 44.92 crore in September. Sunil Mittal-led Airtel's wireless subscriber gain of 3.52 lakh pushed up the telco's user tally to 37.81 crore in October.
The subscriber losses of Vodafone Idea Ltd (VIL) dragged its wireless user base to 22.54 crore in October, the data revealed. Cash-strapped VIL has been battling fundraising woes and subscriber losses. Overall, the total broadband subscribers rose to 88.8 million at the end of October 2023, a month-on-month growth of 0.37 per cent.
In the total broadband pie at the end of October 2023, Reliance Jio Infocomm accounted for 462.34 million users (46.2 crore), Bharti Airtel 258.26 million (25.8 crore), Vodafone Idea 125.68 million (12.5 crore), and BSNL 25.09 million (2.5 crore). "As on October 31, 2023, the top five wired broadband service providers were Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd 9.97 million, Bharti Airtel 7.17 million, BSNL 3.75 million, Atria Convergence Technologies 2.21 million and Oneott Intertainment Limited 1.13 million," TRAI said. As far as wireless broadband services base goes, Reliance Jio Infocomm had 45.2 crore subscribers, Bharti Airtel 25.1 crore, Vodafone Idea 12.5 crore, and BSNL 2.1 crore users.
Wireline subscribers increased to 3.1 crore at the end of October 2023.
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