As per the latest data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel gained 3.04 million and 76,328 mobile users respectively in April 2023, largely at the expense of Vodafone Idea Limited (Vi), which continued to suffer big susbcriber losses. Vi lost a whopping 2.9 million mobile users during the period, further shrinking its user base to 233.75 million. By contrast, Jio and Airtel user bases expanded to 433.27 million and 370.98 million respectively.
Separately, Jio further consolidated its market leadership in the wireline space in April 2023. TRAI data showed that Jio added 0.3 million wireline users, boosting its landline user base to 9.41 million. Erstwhile market leader Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) lost another 94,492 wireline users, marginally decreasing its landline user base to 7.01 million. Meanwhile, Airtel added 0.1 million users, boosting its wireline user base to around 7.25 million.
Further, the month of April witnessed Jio and Airtel widening their customer market shares to 37.90 per cent (from 37.61 per cent in March 2023) and 32.45 per cent (from 32.42 per cent in March 2023), respectively, while Vi’s narrowed further to 20.45 per cent as against 20.70 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 1.4 million and Airtel gained 0.18 million in these geographies while Jio added around 1.58 million. The data released by the regulator also showed that overall wireless tele-density fell marginally to 82. per cent in April 2023 from 82.46 per cent in March 2023.
During April 2023, 10.95 million users submitted requests for mobile number portability (MNP), increasing the cumulative requests to 830.65 million by end-April 2023. The wireline users base increased from 28.41 million in end-March 2023 to 29.39 million at the end of April 2023, registering a net rise of 0.98 million.
