Reliance Jio adds most number of mobile users for 2nd consecutive month

After ruling the month of September as a single telecom player to add customers, Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio with over 4 per cent monthly growth rate has added most numbers of users in October.

Jio added 10.5 million mobile phone users in the month, taking its total customer base to 263 million, said the latest TRAI report. Other than Jio, only Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) added 0.36 million customers in the month.

Bharti Airtel and Vodafone-Idea showed a decline for the second consecutive month. Both the incumbents lost around 9.22 million users together, out of this 7.36 million alone belonged to Vodafone-Idea.

Riding on growing user base, Jio witnessed 0.89 percent growth in market share to 22.46 percent, added the report. While Airtel and Vodafone saw a marginal dip in their market share from last month.

In September, Jio added over 1.30 crore mobile subscribers this month. 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 in September.

As per industry experts, the trend may continue in the coming month. Vodafone-Idea may further lose its customer base and revenue in the upcoming months.

In the September quarter, Vodafone Idea reported a Rs 4,970 crore loss. Airtel reported a profit of Rs 118 crore. This was pale in front of Jio, which claimed to have reported a profit of Rs 681 crore.

At present, Vodafone-Idea has 427.60 million customers followed by Airtel at second spot with 341.65 million users.

In terms of active users on the mobile network, Airtel and Vodafone claim the top positions with 99.57 per cent and 94.47 per cent customers active on their network.

The total wireless subscribers increased from 1,169.29 million at the end of Sep-18 to 1,170.02 million at the end of Oct-18, thereby registering a monthly growth rate of 0.06%. The Wireless subscription in urban areas outpaced the rural areas, which had a comparatively very marginal increase during the month from 521.59 million to 521.77 million.