Jio Widens Subscribers Base; Airtel, Vodafone Idea Way Behind In Nov 2019

Reliance Jio continued to take a lead in widening its subscribers’ base by big margins in November 2019. Its rival Bharti Airtel fell way behind, while Vodafone Idea’s subscriber base witnessed a drastic fall.

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) data, released on Thursday, shows Reliance Jio brought in 5.6 million wireless subscribers, while Bharti Airtel could only manage to add only 1.6 million new customers in November.

Vodafone Idea, after witnessing a minor improvement in subscriber base in October, lost 9.7 percent or 36.4 million wireless subscribers in November. In October, the telecom service provider added 1.89 lakh users.

With this, Vodafone Idea’s market share fell to 29.12 percent, while Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel held 32.04 percent and 28.35 percent market shares, respectively, in the said month.

Both in terms of both subscriber base as well as revenue market share,  Reliance Jio is now the number one telecom operator in the country.

In the broadband category, Reliance Jio took lead with a 56.07 percent market pie. According to the Trai report, Airtel added 7,793 subscribers in November. In October, it lost 8,830 users in the broadband category.

On a month-on-month basis, number of subscribers across all categories fell 2.40 percent, according to the report.―CNBC TV18