Mumbai: Vodafone Idea lost 0.83 million wireless subscribers in August, according to Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) subscription data. Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel have added 0.64 million and 0.13 million wireless subscribers, respectively.
Total wireless subscribers decreased from 1,186.84 million to 1,186.72 million seeing a net subscriber decline of 1.1 million. Wireless subscriptions in urban areas increased from 650.10 million to 650.39 million, however, wireless subscriptions in rural areas decreased from 536.74 million to 536.33 million, revealed the data.
Out of 1,186.72 million wireless subscribers, 991.71 million were active. Reliance Jio reported 350.63 million active wireless subscribers, Bharti Airtel stood at 346.84 million, and Vodafone Idea at 236.49 million.
The number of telephone subscribers increased from 1,209.45 million to 1,209.58 million. Urban telephone subscriptions increased from 670.75 million to 671.31 million, however, the rural subscription decreased from 538.70 million to 538.28 million.
Trai received information from 499 operators in August versus 455 operators in July and reported that the total broadband subscribers increased from 808.60 million to 813.47 million. Mobile device users grew from 783.39 million to 787.94 million, wired subscribers grew marginally from 24.01 million to 24.09 million and fixed wireless subscribers grew marginally from 1.19 million to 1.24 million.
The top five service providers constituted 98.75 per cent market share of the total broadband subscribers. These were Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd (447.57 million), Bharti Airtel (205.96 million), Vodafone Idea (123.53 million), BSNL (24.28 million), and Atria Convergence (1.95 million).
The top five wireless broadband service providers were Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd (443.86 million), Bharti Airtel (202.27 million), Vodafone Idea (123.52 million), BSNL (18.19 million), and Tikona Infinet Ltd (0.30 million).
The top five wired broadband service providers were BSNL (5.49 million), Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd (3.71 million), Bharti Airtel (3.69 million), Atria Convergence Technologies (1.95 million), and Hathway Cable & Datacom (1.08 million).
The total wireline subscribers increased from 22.61 million to 22.86 million, a net subscriber increase of 0.25 million. Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel led the growth by adding 0.25 million and 0.10 million subscribers, respectively. Vodafone Idea added 7870 subscribers whereas BSNL, MTNL, Tata Telecommunications, Reliance Communications, and Quadrant lost subscribers.