As per the latest data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Bharti Airtel lost around 1.2 million mobile users while Reliance Jio gained 1.84 million mobile users in October 2023. Vodafone Idea Limited (Vi) continued to suffer big subscriber losses as it lost 1.41 million mobile users in October 2023, further shrinking its user base to 198.38 million. By contrast, Jio user base expanded to 422.11 million. Meanwhile, Airtel user base dropped to 374.96 million in October 2023 from 376.15 million in September 2023.
Separately, Jio further consolidated its market leadership in the wireline space in October 2023. TRAI data showed that Jio added 0.21 million wireline users, boosting its landline user base to 10.67 million. Erstwhile market leader Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) lost another 0.04 million wireline users. Meanwhile, Airtel added 0.14 million users, boosting its wireline user base to around 8.07 million.
Further, the month of October 2023 witnessed Jio widening their customer market shares to 39.3 per cent (from 38.06 per cent in September 2023). Meanwhile, Airtel’s customer market shares remain unchanged at 32.85 per cent (from 32.85 per cent in September 2023). Further, Vi’s narrowed further to 19.59 per cent as against 19.78 per cent the previous month.
Besides, TRAI data showed that Vi lost customers in rural India, while Airtel and Jio made modest gains. Vi lost 0.99 million in these geographies while Airtel gained 0.47 million and Jio added around 1.32 million. The data released by the regulator also showed that overall wireless tele-density remain unchanged at 82.54 per cent in October 2023.
During October 2023, 12.72 million users submitted requests for mobile number portability (MNP), increasing the cumulative requests to 902.80 million by end-October 2023 from 890.08 million by end-September 2023. The wireline user base increased from 30.98 million at the end of September 2023 to 31.32 million at the end of October 2023, registering a net increase of 0.34 million.
