Data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) for the month of March showed that Airtel continued gaining subscriber share with 2.2 million customers added in the month.
Jio had lost 3.6 million customers and Vodafone Idea lost 1.5 million in February, while in January, Jio and Vodafone Idea lost 9.3 million and 300,000 users, respectively. In December, Jio lost more than 13 million customers, its sharpest fall in subscriber base due to the impact of SIM consolidation stemming from tariff hike of 20-25% done in November last year.
The change in drift for Jio was in expected lines as analysts pegged the material impact of the tariff hikes to mitigate by end of the fourth quarter of FY 22.
Overall telecom user base to more than 1.16 billion crore in March 2022, the total number of wireless subscribers increased to 1.142 billion in March from 1.141 billion in February.
Urban telephone subscription decreased to 640 million from 647 million and the rural subscription increased to 519.8 million from 518.2 million between March and February
Reliance Jio continued to lead growth in the wireline segment with net customer addition of 2.87 lakh. Bharti Airtel added 83,700 new customers, Quadrant 19,683, Vodafone Idea 14,066 and Tata Teleservices 1,054.
BSNL and MTNL lost 67,634 and 15,576 customers in this segment, respectively. The total broadband subscribers also grew to 788.3 million in March from 783.3 million in February.
