Jio Outpaces Airtel In March Subscriber Addition, Vi Languishes

Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. gained the highest number of subscribers in March, outpacing the additions at Bharti Airtel Ltd., while Vodafone Idea Ltd. continued to lose users.

The telecom venture of India's richest person added 3.05-million net subscribers in March. Airtel gained 1.03 million subscribers and Vi lost 1.21 million, according to the data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Monday.

In March, 11.70 million subscribers submitted requests for mobile number portability, increasing the total number of such requests to 819.70 million.

India's wireless user base grew for the first time in 2023 as the total number of wireless subscribers rose 0.17% over the previous month to 1.14 billion as on March 31, the TRAI data showed.

• The number of mobile phone users in urban areas rose 0.19% to 627.54 million.

• The number of mobile phone users in rural areas rose 0.15% to 516.38 million.

• The wireless tele-density in India stood at 82.46% in February 2023.

• The wireless tele-density stood at 57.46% in rural and 128.45% in urban areas.

The broadband space grew, too, with the number of users increasing 0.86% sequentially to 846.57 million, as on March 31, the data showed.

• With a user base of 8.33 million, Jio is the biggest wired broadband service provider, followed by Airtel (6.12 million), BSNL (3.60 million), ACT Fibernet (2.14 million) and Hathway Cable and Datacom Ltd. (1.12 million).

• The top five wireless broadband service providers were Jio (430.23 million), Airtel (235.78 million), Vi (124.82 million), BSNL (21.77 million) and Intech Online (0.23 million).

The top five service providers constituted 98.37% market share in the broadband space.