Vi loses 4.28 mn subscribers in June
NEW DELHI: Troubled Vodafone Idea continued to lose mobile subscribers in June, ceding fresh ground to rivals Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel which added 5.46 million and 3.81 million customers, respectively, in the fiercely competitive Indian telecom market, according to monthly data by the Telecom Authority of India (Trai).
Vodafone Idea lost about 4.28 million subscribers during June, as its user base shrunk to 273 million, compounding the woes of the debt-laden telco which is struggling to stay afloat.
According to telecom subscription data for the month of June released by sector regulator Trai, Reliance Jio cemented it lead, gaining 5.46 million users. Its mobile subscriber base
swelled to 436 million in June.
The Mukesh Ambani-led telecom operator also led the tally of subscriber net additions in wireline, on-boarding 187,000 new users in that category.
Bharti Airtel added 3.81 million wireless subscribers in June, pushing up its mobile user base to 352 million.
Overall, the number of telephone subscribers in India increased to 1.202 billion at the end of June 2021, a monthly growth rate of 0.34%.
Urban telephone subscription was up, but the rural subscriptions dipped marginally in June.
“As per the reports received from 440 operators in the month of June, 2021, the number of broadband subscribers increased from 780.27 million at the end of May-21 to 792.78 million at the end of June-21 with a monthly growth rate of 1.60%,” the data by Trai showed.
The top five service providers constituted 98.7% market share of the total broadband subscribers at the end of June. “These service providers were Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd (439.91 million), Bharti Airtel (197.10 million), Vodafone Idea (121.42 million), BSNL (22.69 million) and
Atria Convergence (1.91 million),” Trai said.
Trai’s subscriber count score card for June, comes amid an existential struggle of mobile operator Vodafone Idea in a three private player market. Billionaire Kumar Mangalam Birla recently stepped down as chairman of Vodafone Idea Ltd, within two months of offering to hand over Aditya Birla Group’s stake in the telco over to the government, in a bid to avert a crisis for the telecom company.
As per the Q1 report card released by the telco, the total gross debt (excluding lease liabilities and including interest accrued but not due) as of June 30, 2021 of VIL stood at ₹1.91 lakh crore, comprising of deferred spectrum payment obligations of ₹1.06 lakh crore and AGR liability of ₹62,180 crore that are due to the government.