Personal Telecom companies Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea Ltd (VIL) combined lost more than one crore mobile subscribers in September. Whereas government-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) surprised everyone and added about 8.5 lakh mobile users during this period. This information has been given in the monthly data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). Reliance Jio lost 79.69 lakh mobile subscribers in September compared to the previous month. Bharti Airtel lost 14.34 lakh customers and Vodafone Idea lost 15.53 lakh customers. At the same time, the number of BSNL wireless customers increased by 8.49 lakh on a monthly basis in September.
How many customers does which company have?
In September, the number of wireless customers of Reliance Jio was 46.37 crore, the number of Bharti Airtel customers was 38.34 crore and the number of wireless customers of Vodafone Idea was 21.24 crore. During this period, the number of BSNL customers increased to 9.18 crore. Earlier in July, all three private companies had increased mobile rates by 10-27 percent. However, BSNL avoided following in the footsteps of its bigger rivals. Its Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) Robert Ravi recently ruled out a fee hike in the near future. “We can clearly say that we are not going to increase our tariffs in the near future,” Ravi told reporters in October.
BSNL trying to regain market share
Actually, BSNL is actively trying to woo customers and regain market share. The company has recently launched a number of new offerings and initiatives ranging from ‘spam blockers’ to automated SIM ‘kiosks’ and ‘direct-to-device’ services. According to TRAI subscriber data, all service areas except Odisha saw a decline in the number of wireless subscribers during September 2024. TRAI said, “As per information received from 1,167 operators in September, 2024 as compared to 1,219 operators in August, 2024, the total number of broadband subscribers has declined from 94.92 crore at the end of August, 2024 to 94.44 crore at the end of September, 2024.” Remained. The monthly decline rate in this was 0.51 percent.
Total number of wireless subscribers decreased
Jio topped the list of broadband subscribers (wired and wireless) with 477 million subscribers at the end of September 2024. It was followed by Bharti Airtel (28.5 crore) and Vodafone India (12.6 crore). BSNL was at fourth position in that list with the number of subscribers of 3.7 crore. India’s total wireless subscriber base declined to 115.37 crore by the end of September 2024, registering a monthly decline rate of 0.87 percent. The monthly decline rates of urban and rural wireless subscribers stood at 0.80 percent and 0.95 percent, respectively.
