Reliance Jio added around 80.82 lakh subscribers in April, showed data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Monday. Jio's subscriber base stood at around 31.48 crore at the end of April, it said.
Surprisingly, the state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited was the only other gainer with over 2.28 lakh new subscribers taking its total tally to around 11.59 crore.
The total number of wireless subscribers in the country (inclusive of GSM, CDMA and LTE) increased 0.04 percent from 116.18 crore in March to 116.23 crore at the end of April 2019.
The other major service providers, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea (VIL), further eroded their subscriber base in April. Bharti Airtel lost 32.89 lakh subscribers pulling its subscriber base down to around 32.19 crore, while the Vodafone Idea, the largest company in terms of subscriptions, lost 15.82 lakh connections taking its tally to around 39.32 crore subscribers.
This has been the common trend over the past few months, as Jio slowly gaining momentum on Airtel, which somehow keeps on losing customers.
Having said that, this might have been Airtel’s ploy, as the telco looks to cut on its losses from low-end user base and pushing its price bracket above Rs 400, in order to rack up its average revenue per user (ARPU) figures.
But if Jio’s userbase sees consistent growth over the next few quarters, the Reliance-owned telco stands the chance to become the leading player in the sector.
The wireless subscription in urban areas increased from 650.49 million (65.04 crore) at the end of March 2019 to 652.35 million (65.23 crore) at the end of April 2019. However, in the rural area, it declined from 511.32 million (51.13 crore) to 509.95 million (50.99 crore) during the month. The monthly growth rates of urban and rural wireless subscription were 0.29 per cent and (-)0.27 per cent respectivelyTRAI report
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