As per the latest data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel gained 1.42 million and 1.05 million mobile users respectively in November 2022, largely at the expense of Vodafone Idea Limited (Vi), which continued to suffer big customer losses. Vi lost a whopping 1.82 million mobile users during the period, further shrinking its user base to 243.79 million. By contrast, Jio and Airtel user bases expanded to 422.80 million and 366.08 million respectively.
Separately, Jio further consolidated its market leadership in the landline space in November 2022. The data by TRAI data showed that Jio added 0.21 million wireline users, boosting its landline user base to 8.10 million. Erstwhile market leader Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) lost another 3,021 wireline users, marginally reducing its landline user base to 7.09 million. Meanwhile, Airtel added 0.13 million users, boosting its wireline user base further to around 6.63 million.
Further, the month witnessed Jio and Airtel widening their customer market shares to 36.99 per cent (from 36.85 per cent in October 2022) and 32.03 per cent (from 31.92 per cent in October 2022), respectively, while Vi’s narrowed further to 21.33 per cent as against 21.48 the previous month.
Besides, TRAI data showed that Vi and Airtel lost customers in rural India, while Jio made modest gains. Vi and Airtel lost 1.37 million and 0.73 million users respectively in these geographies while Jio added around 0.56 million. The data released by the regulator also showed that overall wireless tele-density fell marginally to 82.64 per cent in November 2022 from 82.75 per cent in October 2022.
During the month, 12.02 million users submitted requests for mobile number portability (MNP), increasing the cumulative requests to 771.94 million by end-November 2022. The wireline users base increased from 26.82 million in end-October 2022 to 27.13 million at the end of November 2022, registering a net rise of 0.27 million.
