April Telecom Data: Jio, Airtel add subscribers, Vi continues to lose

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) released the telecom subscription data for April 2022 and reported an increase of 0.05% in India’s wireless mobile user count compared to the previous month. India’s total mobile subscribers increased by 5.6 lakh users in April 2022.

The total number of mobile subscribers in the country now stands at 114.27 crores. 

Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio reported addition of 16.8 lakh users in April 2022, bringing its total mobile user tally to 40.57 crore users. 

Kumar Mangalam Birla-backed Vodafone Idea continued recording subscriber losses with the company losing 15.7 lakh users in April, bringing their total tally to 25.92 crore users as of April 31, 2022. 

Sunil Mittal-led Bharti Airtel continued adding subscribers. Airtel added 8.1 lakh new mobile subscribers. The company which is the second-largest telecom provider in the country after Reliance Jio now controls 31.61% of the wireless telecom market with 36.12 crore wireless users.

State-owned BSNL and MTNL continued to record losses in wireless subscribers. 

Highlights of TRAI Monthly Telecom Report

Here are other highlights of TRAI’s monthly telecom report:

• The overall Tele-density in India remained the same i.e. 84.88% which was at the end of March-22.
• Delhi service area has maximum tele-density of 269.08% and the Bihar service area has
  minimum tele-density of 53.19% at the end of April-22.
• As on 30th April 2022, the private access service providers held 89.79% market share of the wireless subscribers whereas BSNL and MTNL, the two PSU access service providers, had a market share of only 10.21%.
• Except for Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, and Punjab service areas, all other service areas have shown a growth rate in their wireless subscribers during the month of April-22.
• Bharti Airtel had the maximum proportion of 97.65% of its active wireless subscribers as against its total wireless subscribers during the month and MTNL had the minimum proportion of active wireless subscribers at 19.75%.
• During the month of April-22, a total of 78.2 lakh requests were received for Mobile Number Portability (MNP).
• In MNP Zone-I (Northern and Western India), the highest number of requests to date have been received in Maharashtra (about 5.75 crore) followed by Uttar Pradesh-East (about 5.40 crore) service area. 
• In MNP Zone-II (Southern and Eastern India), the highest number of requests to date have been received in Karnataka (about 5.36 crore) followed by Andhra Pradesh (about 5.20 crore). 

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Research Analyst: Bavadharini KS