Vodafone Idea continues to lose subscribers in Indian market, Airtel gains

Vodafone Idea continues to lose subscribers in the Indian market as Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel gained subscribers in December 2023, according to the latest data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). Vodafone Idea lost 13.68 lakh wireless subscribers in December, as compared with a loss of 10.73 lakh subscribers in November. The dip in subscriber count comes as one of the many setbacks in Vi’s kitty, which is still struggling to roll out 5G services in India.

On the other hand, rivals gained subscribers for the same period. In terms of gross customer addition, Jio performed better than Airtel by onboarding more customers to its network. According to Reliance Jio added 39.94 lakh net wireless subscribers as compared with 34.47 lakh in November. Bharti Airtel managed to add 18.5 lakh subscribers, a bit higher than the previous month, according to the active, or visitor location register (VLR), data released by TRAI every month. The active user base of Airtel increased to 377.54 million in December, while Jio’s jumped to 424.51 million. Vi, on the other hand, saw the user base shrink to 196.68 million.

TRAI’s data revealed that 98.9 percent of Airtel’s users were active, while that of Jio was 92.32 percent. Vi took the biggest hit with only 88.18 percent of its users active on the network. According to the TRAI data, the combined mobile connection additions went up 35.78 percent to 43.22 lakh from November to December-end. The telecom regulator said the overall wireless density of telecommunications rose to 82.95 percent in December last year.

The government-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd, which also holds the third rank, lost 1.5 lakh wireless subscribers in December, about 84 percent lower than the earlier month, according to the TRAI data. BSNL is currently expanding its 4G network, while the company’s 5G services are expected to start rolling out something in the second half of the year, according to previous announcements from the government.

— Written with inputs from IANS