Reliance Jio dominates mobile subscriber market, Bharti Airtel trails

Reliance Jio has outperformed Bharti Airtel in gaining new mobile subscribers in April 2023, according to the latest data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai). The data suggests that more users are shifting from Vodafone Idea (Vi) to Jio.

In April, Jio added 3.04 million mobile users while Airtel reported only 76,328 additions due to recent tariff hikes. Vi continued to struggle, losing nearly 3 million customers, which further reduced its mobile user base to 233.75 million by the end of April.

Trai's data revealed that Jio's mobile user base grew to 433.27 million in April, while Airtel's remained stable at 370.98 million. India's overall mobile user base slightly decreased by 0.07 percent to approximately 1.143 billion. The wireless tele-density also experienced a marginal drop from 82.46 percent in March to 82.34 percent in April.

Jio also strengthened its position in the landline segment by adding 0.3 million wireline users, reaching a landline user base of 9.41 million. Airtel added 0.1 million users, bringing its wireline user base to around 7.25 million. However, state-owned BSNL faced setbacks, losing 94,492 wireline users and reducing its landline user base to 7.01 million.

Vi's difficulties in securing funds have hindered its 4G network expansion and delayed its plans for 5G rollout, making it harder for the company to retain customers.

According to Trai's data, Jio and Airtel have increased their market shares to 37.9 percent and 32.45 percent respectively, while Vi's market share has decreased to 20.45 percent. In terms of active users, Airtel leads with 98.81 percent of its users active on the network, followed by Jio with 93.99 percent and Vi with 88.57 percent.

In rural areas, Jio and Airtel gained 1.58 million and 0.19 million users respectively, while Vi lost 1.41 million users. The cumulative requests for mobile number portability reached 830.65 million by the end of April, with around 10.95 million users submitting requests during that month.