Reliance Jio has suffered a major setback. The number of wireless users of Jio has registered a decline for the first time in the last 21 months. According to the latest report of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), in September 2021, about 19 million wireless subscribers have distanced themselves from Jio’s network. However, during the same period, the number of subscribers of Bharti Airtel has increased by 2.74 lakh.
Airtel’s wireless subscriber base has increased from 35.14 crores to 35.44 crores. While the subscriber number of Reliance Jio, India’s largest telecom operator, is 42.48 lakh. If we talk about Vodafone Idea, then in the month of September this year, about 10.77 lakh users have left the company. With this, the user base of Vi has come down to 26.99 crores. Airtel’s wireless subscribers market share has registered an increase of 0.08 percent. While the market share of Jio has decreased by 4.29 percent.
Looking at Airtel’s August figures, during this period there was an increase of 1.38 lakh in Airtel’s subscriber count. Also, there has been an increase of 2.74 lakh in September. Whereas in August, a maximum of 6.5 lakh users was associated with Jio. But in September it has seen a decline of 1.9 crores. At the same time, the situation of Vodafone Idea (VI) is not improving. After 8.33 lakhs in October, there has been a decline of 10.77 lakhs in Vi users in September.
According to the TRAI report, The number of telephone subscribers in India decreased from 1,209.58 million at the end of August-21 to 1,189.15 million at the end of September-21, thereby showing a monthly decline rate of 1.69%. Urban telephone subscription decreased from 671.31 million at the end of August-21 to 659.09 million at the end of September-21 and the rural subscription decreased from 538.28 million to 530.06 million during the same period. The monthly decline rates of urban and rural telephone subscriptions were 1.82% and 1.53% respectively during the month of September-21.
A Decline in Overall Wireless Subscriber
Total wireless subscribers decreased from 1,186.72 million at the end of August-21 to 1,166.02 million at the end of September-21, thereby registering a monthly decline rate of 1.74%. Wireless subscriptions in urban areas decreased from 650.39 million at the end of August 21 to 637.89 million at the end of September-21 and wireless subscriptions in rural areas also decreased from 536.33 million to 528.13 million during the same period. Monthly decline rates of urban and rural wireless subscriptions were -1.92% and -1.53% respectively.
As of 30th September 2021, the private access service providers held 89.99% market share of the wireless subscribers whereas BSNL and MTNL, the two PSU access service providers, had a market share of only 10.01%.
Reason for Decline in Base of Reliance Jio
According to Reliance Jio Infocomm President Kiran Thomas, in the second wave of Covid-19, it was announced by Jio to give free voice minutes. However, after this campaign was stopped, people stopped recharging. Whose figures come after 90 days i.e. three months. This is the reason that now there is a decline in the users of Reliance Jio.
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