India’s largest telecom operator Reliance Jio added 30.5 lakh mobile subscribers in March, accelerating its momentum of February, while Vodafone Idea lost 12.12 lakh wireless users during the month, according to data released by telecom regulator TRAI. Sunil Mittal-led telecom company Bharti Airtel onboarded 10.37 lakh mobile subscribers in March, raising its subscriber base to 37.09 crores in March against 36.98 crores in February.
Reliance Jio added 30.5 lakh subscribers in March, as its subscriber count exceeded 43 crore, compared to 42.71 crore in February. It is pertinent to mention that in February too, Reliance Jio had added the maximum number of mobile subscribers (at about 10 lakh) among telcos, while Airtel had gained 9.82 lakh mobile users during February.
A look at March data released by TRAI showed that Vodafone Idea — which trails Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel in the mobile market subscriber tally — lost 12.12 lakh mobile users in March. Vodafone Idea’s mobile subscriber base shrunk to 23.67 crore in March, from 23.79 crore in the previous month.
Top five service providers constituted 98.37 per cent market share of the total broadband subscribers at the end of March 2023, including Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd (43.85 crore), Bharti Airtel (24.19 crore), Vodafone Idea (12.48 crore).
Overall, the number of total telephone subscribers in India increased to 1,172.84 million (117.2 crore) at the end of March 2023, showing a monthly growth rate of 0.21 per cent.
“Urban telephone subscription increased from 652.16 million at the end of February-23 to 653.71 million at the end of March-23 and the rural subscription also increased from 517.77 million to 518.63 million during the same period.
“The monthly growth rates of urban and rural telephone subscription were 0.24 per cent and 0.17 per cent respectively during the month of March-23,” TRAI said.
Overall teledensity in India increased to 84.51 per cent at the end of March 2023.
“The Urban Tele-density increased from 133.70 per cent at the end of February-23 to 133.81 per cent at the end of March-23 and rural tele-density also increased from 57.63 per cent to 57.71 per cent during the same period,” it said.
