Reliance Jio continued to outpace rivals Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea in active wireless subscribers and high-paying 4G/5G users, as per the telecom regulator data for April.
Reliance Jio added more active subscribers during this period, gaining 3.06 million users, while Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea lost 2.09 million and 0.63 million active subscribers respectively, according to the data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on Wednesday.
As a result, Jio’s active user base surged to 433.42 million users, while Airtel and Vodafone Idea’s active user bases declined to 383.32 million and 192.64 million users respectively.
The latest wireless broadband user data from Trai also showed that 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. The cash-strapped Vodafone Idea is yet to roll out 5G services.
Notably, Trai data stated an 8.02 per cent decline in the nascent fixed-wireless access user base, which declined to 0.73 million by the end of April, from 0.79 million at March-end.
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 took their respective gross user bases to 472.42 million and 386.51 million, while Vodafone Idea’s gross user base slid to 219.08 million.
Trai data also showed Jio has widened its customer market share to 40.48 per cent (up from 40.30 per cent), while Airtel’s rose marginally to 33.12 per cent (up from 33.10 per cent) and Vodafone Idea’s shrank to 18.77 per cent (down from 18.86 per cent).
The combination of Jio and Airtel’s customer gains resulted in India’s mobile user base rising 0.12 per cent to 1.166 billion users by the end of April.
Overall wireless tele-density increased to 85.76 per cent at the end of April, from 85.69 per cent in the previous month.
