As per the latest data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel gained 3.99 million and 1.85 million mobile users respectively in December 2023, largely at the expense of Vodafone Idea Limited (Vi), which continued to suffer big subscriber losses. Vi lost a whopping 1.36 million mobile users during the period, further shrinking its user base to 223.04 million.
Separately, Jio further consolidated its market leadership in the wireline space in December 2023. TRAI data showed that Jio added 0.24 million wireline users, boosting its landline user base to 11.04 million. Erstwhile market leader Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) lost another 0.034 million wireline users. Meanwhile, Airtel added 0.08 million users, boosting its wireline user base to around 8.31 million.
Further, the month of December 2023 witnessed Jio and Airtel widening their customer market shares to 39.69 per cent (from 39.49 per cent in November 2023) and 32.95 per cent (from 32.91 per cent in November 2023), respectively, while Vi’s narrowed further to 19.25 per cent as against 19.44 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 0.41 million in these geographies while Airtel gained 0.15 million and Jio added around 1.89 million. The data released by the regulator also showed that overall wireless tele-density increased marginally to 82.95 per cent in December 2023 from 82.71 per cent in November 2023.
During December 2023, 12.44 million users submitted requests for mobile number portability (MNP), increasing the cumulative requests to 927.19 million by end-December 2023 from 914.75 million by end-November 2023. The wireline user base increased from 31.57 million at the end of November 2023 to 31.84 million at the end of December 2023, registering a net increase of 0.28 million.
