Reliance Jio, only telecom company to register gains as BSNL, Airtel, Vodafone lose users

Recording straight eight months of decline, Vodafone Idea Ltd has lost 4.8 million users in June. Whereas Bharti Airtel Ltd’s loss of users was around 1.1 million from the previous two months, reported LiveMint.

The only telecom company which has added customers was Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd of around 4.5 million in the month of June.

Jio’s share in the wireless market is now 34.8%, whereas Airtel and Vodafone’s subscriber base stands at 27.8% and 26.8%, respectively, TRAI said on Thursday.

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) has lost 1.7 million users in June.

Overall mobile subscriber base across the country declined by 3.2 million in June, taking the total to 1.14 billion.

Meanwhile, fixed-line subscriber base increased a marginal 40,000 to 19.8 million amid the government’s focus to improve broadband connectivity.

BSNL has lost 1.8 lakh wireline customers in June. Whereas Reliance Jio, Airtel and Vodafone added fixed-line subscribers, at 2.2 lakh, 25,256 and 6,854, respectively.

According to the report in LiveMint, total subscription in urban areas decreased to 636.8 million in June from 637.9 million at the end of May. Unlike the previous two months which saw exodus of migrant workers from urban to rural areas due to lockdowns leading to a rise in number of subscribers in the latter, rural subscriptions declined to 523.7 million as of June 30 from 525.8 million a month ago.

“The monthly decline rates of urban and rural telephone subscription were 0.16% and 0.41%, respectively, during the month of June-20," the telecom regulator said.

BSNL led with 7.9 million subscribers in June in the fixed-broadband category. Followed by Bharti Airtel at 2.5 million, Atria Convergence Technologies at 1.7 million and Reliance Jio 1.1 million.