Vodafone Idea subscription sees steepest fall in five months

Vodafone Idea lost 1.9 million subscribers in November, the steepest fall in five months, led by a loss of 1.2 million users in rural markets. This is the 36th consecutive month of decline in active subscribers for the telecom company. The cash-strapped operator added just 1.4 million 4G users over the past year. This is in stark contrast to Airtel’s and Jio’s 34 million and 20 million additions, respectively.

Overall, the industry showed a slight improvement in November, with Jio gaining market share at the expense of VIL. Jio added 2 million wireless subscribers, while Airtel’s overall subscriber base increased by 1.3 million However, the impact of the recent tariff hikes will be visible when TRAI reveals subscriber numbers for December.

“Bharti’s wireless subscriber base increased at a healthy pace of 1.3 million in November following the decline of 0.5 million in the previous month. Bharti’s subscriber mix continues to improve, driven by healthy traction in the mobile broadband segment, wherein it added 1.3 million subscribers in November, similar to the previous month. Jio added 2 million wireless subscribers on net basis in November 2021, up from 1.8 million subscriber additions in the previous month; however, net additions remained sharply lower than the average of 4.2 million subscribers over April-August 2021,” said a report from Kotak Equities Research.

Jio gained wireless subscriber market share across 13 circles, maintained market share in four and lost share across five circles in November. Bharti gained market share in 14 circles, maintained its position in one circle, while losing in the remaining seven. VIL lost market share in 18 circles, while gaining modestly in Delhi and J&K, and broadly maintaining its position in Mumbai and Odisha. Bharti gained market share in metros, A and B category circles, while maintaining its position in the C category, whereas Jio lost market share in metros and gained across the remaining categories. The Hindu BusinessLine