As per the latest data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel gained 3.03 million and 1.32 million mobile users respectively in May 2023, largely at the expense of Vodafone Idea Limited (Vi), which continued to suffer big subscriber losses. Vi lost a whopping 2.81 million mobile users during the period, further shrinking its user base to 233.09 million. By contrast, Jio and Airtel user bases expanded to 436.30 million and 372.31 million respectively.
Separately, Jio further consolidated its market leadership in the wireline space in May 2023. TRAI data showed that Jio added 0.32 million wireline users, boosting its landline user base to 9.74 million. Erstwhile market leader Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) lost another 0.47 million wireline users, marginally decreasing its landline user base to 6.53 million. Meanwhile, Airtel added 0.12 million users, boosting its wireline user base to around 7.37 million.
Further, the month of May 2023 witnessed Jio and Airtel widening their customer market shares to 38.17 per cent (from 37.90 per cent in April 2023) and 32.57 per cent (from 32.45 per cent in April 2023), respectively, while Vi’s narrowed further to 20.20 per cent as against 20.45 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 1.49 million and Airtel gained 1.02 million in these geographies while Jio added around 1.4 million. The data released by the regulator also showed that overall wireless tele-density fell marginally to 82.29 per cent in May 2023 from 82.34 per cent in April 2023.
During May 2023, 11.47 million users submitted requests for mobile number portability (MNP), increasing the cumulative requests to 842.12 million by end-April 2023. The wireline users base decreased from 29.39 million in end-April 2023 to 29.36 million at the end of May 2023, registering a net reduction of 0.2 million.
