Jio, Airtel add 99.8% of new telecom subscribers in May as Vi, BSNL lose users: Trai

Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel together accounted for over 99.8% of all new telecom subscribers in May, helping India’s total telecom subscriber base rise marginally to 120.7 crore, according to the latest data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).The sector added a total of 43.58 lakh net subscribers in May, with Jio and Airtel contributing a combined 43.51 lakh. The total subscriber base had stood at 120.3 crore in April, according to PTI.Subscriber gains were largely offset by losses reported by Vodafone Idea (Vi), BSNL, MTNL and Reliance Communications. While Jio added 27 lakh mobile users, taking its total wireless base to 47.51 crore and market share to 40.92%, Airtel added 2.75 lakh new users, growing its mobile base to 39 crore and a 33.61% market share.By contrast, Vi lost 2.74 lakh subscribers, BSNL 1.35 lakh, MTNL 4.7 lakh and Reliance Communications 30 mobile users.India's mobile subscriber base grew to 116.84 crore, while landline connections rose by 3.34% to 3.86 crore. In the fixed-line segment, Reliance Jio led with a net addition of 12.76 lakh new subscribers, followed by Airtel with 99,000, Tata Teleservices with 4,890, Vi with 1,795 and STPL with 252. MTNL and BSNL continued to shed customers, losing 66,834 and over 46,000 fixed-line users respectively, the agency reported.

The country’s total broadband user base climbed to 97.48 crore in May. Jio dominated the segment with 49.44 crore broadband users, followed by Airtel at 30.2 crore, Vi at 12.66 crore, BSNL at 3.43 crore, and Atria Convergence with 23.2 lakh users.Trai noted a dip in 5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) subscribers from 75 lakh in April to 74 lakh in May, due to Reliance Jio reclassifying over 10 lakh FWA-UBR subscribers under the fixed-line (FTTx) category.