Reliance Jio continued to outpace rivals Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea in active wireless subscribers and high-paying 4G/5G users, according to telecom regulator data for April. Reliance Jio added 3.06 million active subscribers, while Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea lost 2.09 million and 0.63 million active subscribers, respectively, as per the data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on 19 June. Active, or visitor location register (VLR) data, published monthly by TRAI, indicates the number of mobile users regularly using a mobile network.
As a result, Jio’s active user base increased to 433.42 million, while Airtel and Vodafone Idea’s active user bases declined to 383.32 million and 192.64 million, respectively. The latest wireless broadband user data from TRAI also showed Jio and Airtel added 2.69 million and 2.07 million high-paying 4G and 5G users, respectively. Vodafone Idea lost 1.26 million 3G/4G users. Cash-strapped Vi is yet to roll out 5G services. Notably, TRAI data revealed an 8.02% decline in the nascent fixed-wireless access user base, which decreased to 0.73 million by the end of April, down from 0.79 million at the end of March.
On a gross scale, Jio added 2.68 million subscribers, while Bharti Airtel added 0.75 million subscribers. Meanwhile, Vodafone Idea and state-owned BSNL continued to suffer customer losses, losing 0.73 million and 1.2 million subscribers, respectively, in April.
The net additions for Jio and Airtel brought their respective gross user bases to 472.42 million and 386.51 million, while Vi’s gross user base declined to 219.08 million. TRAI data also showed Jio widened its customer market share to 40.48% (up from 40.30%), while Airtel’s market share rose marginally to 33.12% (from 33.10%) and Vodafone Idea’s shrank to 18.77% (from 18.86%).
The combined customer gains by Jio and Airtel led to a 0.12% increase in India’s mobile user base, reaching 1.166 billion users by the end of April. Consequently, overall wireless tele-density rose to 85.76% at the end of April, up from 85.69% in the previous month.
