Lockdown woes: Telecom industry lost over 56 lakh mobile users subscribers in May, says TRAI

The telecom industry lost around 56.11 lakh wireless subscribers in May amid the lockdown, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) data reveals.

The overall telecom subscriber base for wireless connections stood at over 114.39 crore in May, compared to 114.95 crore in April.

Although there was an overall erosion of subscriber base, Reliance Jio continued to lead the subscription race and added over 36.57 lakh subscribers during the month under review taking its total tally to 39.27 crore users.

Both Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea continued to lose subscribers. Airtel lost over 47.42 lakh subscribers and Vodafone Idea lost 47.26 lakh users taking their respective subscriber base to 31.78 crore and over 30.99 crore, showed the TRAI data on Wednesday.

State-run BSNL added over 2.01 lakh new connections taking its subscriber base to over 11.99 crore.

The data showed that in May 29.8 lakh subscribers submitted their requests for mobile number portability (MNP).

"With this, the cumulative MNP requests increased from 488.23 million at the end of April 2020 to 491.21 million at the end of May 2020, since implementation of MNP," the TRAI statement said.