Vodafone Idea suffers loss of subscribers as Jio and Airtel add to user tally

New Delhi:

India’s total mobile subscriber base fell by 3.6 million in September, with Vodafone Idea suffering a decline in subscribers even as bigger rivals Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel added users month on month, according to data from the telecommunications regulator.

India’s largest mobile operator, Jio, further strengthened its position in the market, adding 7.2 lakh wireless subscribers in September, while Bharti Airtel increased its number of mobile users by 4.12 lakh.

Notably, while Jio led its peers in subscriber additions in September, its net additions this time were lower than the 32.81 lakh subscribers the telco had gained in August.

Struggling Vodafone Idea faced a drop in subscriber numbers (by 40 lakh), its base shrank to 24.91 crore in September.

“The total number of wireless subscribers fell from 1,149.11 million at the end of August 22 to 1,145.45 million at the end of September 22, registering a monthly decline rate of 0.32%”, said the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). September data.

Overall, the number of telephone subscribers in India (mobile and landline combined) has declined to about 117.19 crores at the end of September 2022, translating into a monthly decline rate of 0.27%.

TRAI said the total number of broadband subscribers increased to 81.6 crore at the end of September 2022, with a monthly growth rate of 0.28%.

The top five service providers accounted for 98.36% market share of total broadband subscribers at the end of September 2022.

“These service providers were Reliance Jio Infocomm (426.80 million), Bharti Airtel (225.09 million), Vodafone Idea (123.20 million), BSNL (25.62 million) and Atria Convergence (2.14 million) “, said TRAI.