Telecom operators Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel added 19.8 lakh mobile subscribers in February month-on-month, while Vodafone Idea lost 20 lakh subscribers, according to data released by TRAI on Thursday.
India’s largest telecom operator Reliance Jio increased its maximum mobile subscriptions to around 10 lakh and increased its mobile subscriptions to 42.71 crore in February from 42.61 crore in January.
Sunil Mittal-led Bharti Airtel gained 9.82 lakh mobile subscribers in February to end the month with a mobile subscriber base of 36.98 crore.
According to data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Vodafone Idea lost 20 lakh customers in the mobile category as its mobile subscriber base shrank to 23.79 crore.
“…total broadband subscribers increased from 839.18 million at the end of January 23 to 839.33 million at the end of February 23, at a monthly growth rate of 0.02 percent,” the press release said.
The five largest service providers had a market share of 98.38 percent of the total number of broadband customers at the end of February 2023.
“These service providers were Reliance Jio Infocomm 435.20 million, Bharti Airtel 239.70 million, Vodafone Idea 123.74 million, BSNL 24.92 million and Atria Convergence 2.14 million,” the press release said.
Overall, the total number of mobile subscribers fell from 1,143.02 million (114.3 crore) at the end of January 2023 to 1,141.96 million (114.1 crore) at the end of February 23, a monthly decline rate of 0.09 percent.
“Mobile subscriptions in urban areas fell to 626.37 million from 627.13 million at the end of January 23, and mobile subscriptions in rural areas also fell from 515.89 million to 515.60 million in the same period. The monthly decline rates of urban and rural mobile subscriptions were 0.12 percent and 0.06 percent, respectively,” TRAI said.
