All telecom operators, except Reliance Jio, lose mobile phone subscribers in Sept: TRAI

Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio with over 5 per cent monthly growth rate came out as single telecom player to add customers in the month of September. Jio added over 1.30 crore mobile subscribers this month, taking its total customer base to 252 million, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) report.

All the other telecom operators witnessed downfall in their customer base. Idea was the biggest loser along with Vodafone. Both the firms together lost 66 lakh, mobile customers. Airtel was the third highest loser with a decline of 23 lakh mobile customers followed by Tata and BSNL, which lost over 10 lakh and 5 lakh customers respectively, said the report.

However, in terms of mobile or wireless market share, Airtel still commands top position with 29.38 per cent. This is also being challenged by rapidly growing Jio, which has increased its market share to 21.57 per cent. Vodafone and Idea have 19 and 18 per cent of the market share.

With a monthly growth rate of 0.21 per cent, total wireless subscribers increased to 1,169 million this month from 1,166 million. Rural areas subscription grew over 2 million to 521.59 million during the month. Whereas urban areas witnessed a marginal decline.

The number of active wireless subscribers was 1,013.23 million.

The telephone subscribers also registered marginal growth. The number of telephone subscribers in India increased from 1,189.08 million at the end of August 2018 to 1,191.40 million at the end of September 2018.

Airtel and Vodafone were gainers in fixed-line connections. In the fixed-line segment, BSNL lost over 71k customers.

The number of broadband subscribers increased over 3 per cent to 481.70 million. Jio commands over 52 per cent of broadband market share with 225 million customer base. Airtel grabbed 21 per cent of the market share with 99 million subscribers, said the report.