Jio adds 649,000 mobile users in August; Airtel gains 138,000
NEW DELHI: India’s largest telecom operator Reliance Jio gained 649,000 mobile users in August leading the subscriber addition tally, ahead of Bharti Airtel which added 138,000 users, according to the TRAI data released on Wednesday.
In contrast, Vodafone Idea lost 833,000 subscribers during August, although its losses were less than July.
Jio continued to outpace rivals in subscriber gains, adding 649,000 wireless users in August, as its mobile base swelled to 44.38 crore.
Sunil Mittal-led Bharti Airtel onboarded 138,000 users during the month, taking it overall wireless subscriber count to 35.41 crore.
Vodafone Idea lost 8.33 lakh mobile subscribers in August as its wireless users count dipped to 27.1 crore, according to data released by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).
Notably, the troubled operator—that got a shot in the arm with a relief package announced by the government recently—has plugged its subscriber losses to an extent, given that it had lost 14.3 lakh users in July.
Meanwhile, for the second consecutive month, Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio has more active subscribers than its rival Airtel. At the end of July, Jio had only a marginal lead over Sunil Mittal-led Airtel; its lead has now grown to over 4 million.
In August, Reliance Jio added 0.65 million subscribers, compared to July’s addition of 6.52 million additions. Similarly, Airtel’s subscriber addition slowed down to 0.14 million from July’s 1.94 million. Vodafone Idea continued its decline and lost 0.83 million subscribers, down from 1.4 million in July.
While Jio is ahead of Airtel and Vodafone Idea in terms of absolute numbers, Airtel and Vodafone Idea fare better when we look at the rate of active subscribers compared to the total subscribers.