Voda Idea, Airtel lose 29.6 million customers as Jio adds 9.4 million in March
22 May 2019
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Mobile subscriber base of Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel shrunk by nearly 14.5 million and 15.1 million, respectively, between end-February 2019 and end-March 2019 while Reliance Jio added 9.4 million users, even as overall telephone subscriber numbers in India declined by 21.87 million to 1183.51 million during the period, data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) showed.
As of 31 March 2019, the private access service providers held 89.74 per cent market share of the wireless subscribers, whereas BSNL and MTNL, the two PSU access service providers, had a market share of only 10.26 per cent.
The number of telephone subscribers 9wireline and wireless) in India declined from 1,205.40 million at the end of February 2019 to 1,183.51 million at the end of March 2019, thereby showing a monthly decline of 21.87 million (1.82 per cent).
Telephone subscriber base in the country, however, increased by 21.70 million year-on-year from 1,161.81 million in March 2018 to 1183.51 million at the end of March 2019.
The number of urban subscribers declined from 675.24 million at the end of February 2019 to 669.16 million at the end of March 2019, while the number of rural subscribers declined from 530.16 million to 514.35 million during the period.
The monthly rate of decline of urban and rural subscription levels were 0.90 per cent and 2.98 per cent, respectively, during March 2019.
The overall tele-density in India declined from 91.86 at the end of February 2019 to 90.11 at the end of March 2019. The urban tele-density declined from 161.65 at the end of February to 159.96 at the end of March, while rural tele-density declined from 59.27 at the end of February to 57.47 at the end of March. The share of urban and rural subscribers in total number of telephone subscribers at the end of March 2019 was 56.54 per cent and 43.46 per cent, respectively.
In March 2019, 5.30 million subscribers submitted requests for Mobile Number Portability (MNP), which takes the cumulative MNP requests from 423.11 million at the end of February to 428.40 million at the end of March.
In the wireline segment, circles of category ‘A’ and metro circles showed monthly growth rate in March 2019. However circles in categories ‘B’ and ‘C’ showed decline in their wireline subscribers during the month. On an yearly basis, circles of all categories showed decline rate in wireline subscribers during the period.
Total number of wireless subscribers (GSM, CDMA & LTE) declined from 1,183.68 million at the end of February 2019 to 1,161.81 million at the end of March 2019, thereby registering a monthly decline of 1.85 per cent.
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