Airtel, Jio drive telecom subscriber base to 116.6 cr in March

NEW DELHI: Net subscriber addition by Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio increased the overall telecom user base to over 116.69 crore in March 2022, telecom regulator Trai said in its monthly report on Thursday.

Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio led new customer additions in both mobile telephony as well as fixed line services segment in March. "The number of telephone subscribers in India increased from 1,166.05 million at the end of February 2022 to 1,166.93 million at the end of March 2022," Trai's subscriber report for March said.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) report said that the urban telephone subscription decreased to 64.71 crore from 64.77 crore and the rural subscription increased to 51.98 crore from 51.82 crore between March and February.

According to the report, the total number of wireless subscribers increased to 114.2 crore in March from 114.15 crore in February. Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio were the only gainers of new mobile subscribers in March. Airtel's net mobile customer addition in March was 22.55 lakh while Jio's net addition stood at 12.6 lakh. Vodafone Idea was the biggest loser of mobile subscribers during the reported month. The company lost over 28.18 lakh customers.

State-owned BSNL and MTNL lost 1.27 lakh and 3,101 mobile connections, respectively. Private telecom operators drove the growth in the wireline (fixed line) segment. The wireline subscriber base increased to 2.48 crore in March from 2.45 crore in February.