Jio adds 84L users, others bear the brunt

New Delhi, Oct. 18: Reliance Jio was the only net gainer adding 84.45 lakh subscribers in August, while other telecom operators including Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea were on the losing side, a report by regulator Trai showed on Friday.

“The number of telephone subscribers in India increased from 1,189.28 million at the end of July 2019 to 1,191.81 million at the end of August 2019,” Trai said in telecom subscription report for the month of August 2019.

The wireless subscriber base with 117.1 crore customers accounted for over 98 per cent of the total telephone users.

“Total wireless subscribers (GSM, CDMA and LTE) increased from 1,168.31 million at the end of July 2019 to 1,171 million at the end of August 2019,” the report said.

The Mukesh Ambani-led Jio added 84.45 lakh mobile customers alone during the reported period.

Among the losers were, Vodafone Idea 49.56 lakh customers, followed by Bharti Airtel 5.61 lakh mobile subscribers, BSNL 2.36 lakh, MTNL 6,701 and Reliance Communications 63 users.

Government-run BSNL was the only operator gaining customers along with Jio since October 2018 but the public sector firm lost the steam in August 2019 with a dip in the subscriber base.

During the reported month 48.6 lakh customers ported out their number.

The wireline subscriber base declined by 1.5 lakh to 2.08 crore with BSNL alone losing 1.41 lakh fixed line customers. Private telecom operators Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel posted growth in their fixed line connection base.