As per the latest data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel gained 3.05 million and 1.03 million mobile users respectively in March 2023, largely at the expense of Vodafone Idea Limited (Vi), which continued to suffer big customer losses. Vi lost a whopping 1.2 million mobile users during the period, further shrinking its user base to 236.75 million. By contrast, Jio and Airtel user bases expanded to 430.23 million and 370.91 million respectively.
Separately, Jio further consolidated its market leadership in the landline space in March 2023. The data by TRAI showed that Jio added 0.3 million wireline users, boosting its landline user base to 9.11 million. Erstwhile market leader Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) gained another 42,555 wireline users, marginally increasing its landline user base to 7.1 million. Meanwhile, Airtel added 0.14 million users, boosting its wireline user base further to around 7.14 million.
Further, the month witnessed Jio and Airtel widening their customer market shares to 37.61 per cent (from 37.41 per cent in February 2023) and 32.42 per cent (from 32.39 per cent in February 2023), respectively, while Vi’s narrowed further to 20.70 per cent as against 20.84 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 0.82 million and Airtel gained 1.4 million in these geographies while Jio added around 1.52 million. The data released by the regulator also showed that overall wireless tele-density fell marginally to 82.46 per cent in March 2023 from 82.38 per cent in February 2023.
During the month, 11.70 million users submitted requests for mobile number portability (MNP), increasing the cumulative requests to 819.70 million by end-March 2023. The wireline users base increased from 27.97 million in end-February 2023 to 28.41 million at the end of March 2023, registering a net rise of 0.44 million
