Jio, Airtel see drop in new mobile subscribers in February: Trai data

Telecom operators Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel have witnessed a drop in the registration of new mobile subscribers in February. Jio and Airtel added 19.8 lakh mobile subscribers month-on-month in February, while Vodafone Idea lost 20 lakh customers, according to recent data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai). 

According to the data, Jio added over 1 million mobile subscribers in February, which was its lowest addition in the last five months. On the other hand, Airtel added 0.98 million subscribers, which is its lowest in the last three months. 

Trai said the total mobile subscriber base fell in February, which was the highest fall in the last three months. The total mobile user base was 1.141 billion at the end of February, down by 1.06 million from the preceding month. Vi’s total consumer base at the end of February was 237.9 million, while Airtel’s base was 369.8 million and Jio’s base was 427.1 million. 

The top five service providers constituted 98.38 per cent market share of the total broadband subscribers at the end of February 2023. “These service providers were Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea, BSNL, and Atria Convergence," according to the release. 

Of the total 1,141.96 million wireless subscribers, 1,027.59 million wireless subscribers were active on the date of peak VLR in the month of February 2023. The proportion of active wireless subscribers was approximately 89.98 per cent of the total wireless subscriber base. 

The number of mobile phone users in urban areas fell 0.12 per cent sequentially to 626.37 million. The number of mobile phone users in rural areas fell 0.06 per cent to 515.60 million. 

"Wireless subscriptions in urban areas decreased from 627.13 million at the end of January 23 to 626.37 million and wireless subscriptions in rural areas also decreased from 515.89 million to 515.60 million during the same period. Monthly decline rates of urban and rural wireless subscriptions were 0.12 per cent and 0.06 per cent, respectively," Trai said. 

Sector experts have said that the fall in the subscribers' base can be attributed to people discarding their additional SIM card connection. An increase in the blocking of fake SIM cards by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is also seen contributing to a fall in the subscribers' base during the month. 

Also read: Reliance Jio, Airtel, Vodafone Idea to use AI filters to stop spam calls, SMS: TRAI

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