Reliance Jio has become the first mobile service provider to cross 40 crore customers mark in India with a net addition of over 35 lakh subscribers in July, according to data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on October 12. The overall telecom subscriber base increased marginally to 116.4 crores in July from 116 crores in June.
Reliance Jio added 35.54 lakh subscribers in July 2020, while Vi (Vodafone Idea) lost 37.26 lakh subscribers, according to data released by telecom regulator TRAI. Bharti Airtel, meanwhile, added 32.6 lakh subscribers, BSNL 3.88 lakh subscribers, and MTLN lost 5,457 subscribers. This makes Reliance Jio the first mobile services provider to cross the 40 crore customer mark in India. Total wireless subscribers in India increased from 114 crore at the end of June to 114.4 crore at the end of July registering a monthly growth rate of 0.30 percent.
Reliance Jio has created a new record, crossing the 400 million users mark. At the same time, the company’s active users have decreased by more than 8.5 crores. In July, the company added 3.5 million new users to its network. According to the TRAI report, in July, the telecom industry also gained 3.5 million users. Not only this, the telecom subscriber base in the country increased to 116.4 million in July.
According to TRAI, the overall telecom user base in the country also increased marginally to 116.4 crores in July from 116 crores in June. “The number of telephone subscribers in India increased from 1,160.52 million at the end of June-20 to 1,164 million at the end of July-20, thereby showing a monthly growth rate of 0.30%. Urban telephone subscription increased from 636.83 million at the end of June-20 to 638.46 million at the end of July-20 and the rural subscription also increased from 523.69 million to 525.54 million during the same period,” the TRAI report noted.
With a market share of 35.03 per cent at 40,08,03,819 subscribers, Reliance Jio now dominates India’s mobile market.
“As may be seen in the above chart, eight states have less teledensity than the all India average teledensity at the end of July-20. Delhi service area has a maximum teledensity of 272.10 and the Bihar service area has minimum teledensity of 52.24 at the end of July-20,” the TRAI report added.
Public sector telecom companies BSNL and MTNL and loss-making private firms Reliance Communications and Tata Teleservices continued to post a decline in the fixed-line customer segments. Reliance Jio now dominates India’s mobile market with a 35.03 percent market share at 40,08,03,819 subscribers.
Bharti Airtel and BSNL added 32.6 lakh and 3.88 lakh mobile customers respectively in July. Vodafone Idea lost over 37 lakh customers. State-run MTNL also lost 5,457 mobile service customers. Broadband connections, dominated by the mobile segment, grew by 1.03 percent to 70.54 crore in July from 69.82 crore in June.
Increase in Broadband Subscriber
The TRAI report also informed that broadband connections have registered an increase of 1 percent in the month of July. Broadband connections grew by 1.03 percent to reach 70.54 crores. Whereas in June this number was 69.83 crores. If you look at the figures of telecom companies, in July, the number of broadband users of Reliance Jio was 40.19 crore. While in Airtel this number stood at 15.57 crores. At the same time, the number of broadband users of Vodafone Idea was 11.52 crores and the number of BSNL users was 2.3 crores.
“Top five service providers constituted 98.91 percent market share of the total broadband subscribers at the end of July,” the Trai report said. Reliance Jio had 40.19 crore broadband customers, Bharti Airtel 15.57 crore, Vodafone Idea 11.52 crore, BSNL 2.3 crore, and Atria Convergence 16.9 lakh subscribers in July.
Mobile Number Portability (MNP)
TRAI has mentioned, During the month of July-20, a total of 7.53 million requests were received for MNP. Out of a total of 7.53 million new requests, 4.16 million requests received from Zone-I and 3.37 million requests received from Zone-II. The cumulative MNP requests increased from 497.04 million at the end of Jun-20 to 504.57 million at the end of July-20, since the implementation of MNP.
