Reliance Jio has become the second mobile operator in India with a subscriber base of 322.98 million in May 2019 – overtaking Airtel.
Airtel, which had dominated the Indian mobile service provider market for several years, has moved to the third position – for the first time – with 320.38 million users. Airtel will be adding 11.47 million mobile phone subscribers of Tata Teleservices to its connections later — regaining the number two position.
Vodafone Idea, the largest mobile operator – has 387.55 million subscribers on its 2G, 3G and 4G networks in India.
However, the active subscriber base of Airtel is significantly higher than Reliance Jio. Airtel has 99.86 percent active wireless subscribers (VLR) as against its total wireless subscribers (HLR), telecom regulator TRAI said. Reliance Jio’s active user base is just 82.99 percent of the total connections.
The report from TRAI indicates that Reliance Jio has added several millions of in-active SIM card users to its 4G network. Both Airtel and Vodafone Idea started focusing on more active users in a bid to increase ARPU and revenue streams.
Reliance Jio added 8.18 million users in May. Vodafone Idea lost 5.7 million users, while Airtel lost 1.51 million users in May, according to data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).
India’s mobile phone subscriber base declined 0.04 percent from 1,162.30 million in April to 1,161.86 million in May.
India’s wireline phone subscribers declined 0.85 percent from 21.47 million in April to 21.29 million in May.
India’s broadband subscribers – mobile Internet and fixed broadband – rose 1.67 percent to 581.51 million in May from 571.95 million in April.
Fixed broadband subscriber base grew 0.17 percent to 18.45 million from 18.41 million. BSNL is the leader in fixed broadband market.
BSNL with 9.09 million, Bharti Airtel with 2.39 million, Atria Convergence Technologies with 1.44 million, Hathway Cable & Datacom with 0.83 million and MTNL with 0.75 million are the top operators in the fixed broadband market.
Reliance Jio with 322.99 million, Bharti Airtel with 118.34 million, Vodafone Idea with 109.01 million, BSNL with 21.67 million and Tata Teleservices with 1.87 million are the leaders in the Indian broadband market in May 2019.
India’s top mobile Internet operators include Reliance Jio Infocomm with 322.99 million, Bharti Airtel with 115.95 million, Vodafone Idea with 108.99 million, BSNL with 12.57 million and Tata Teleservices with 1.49 million subscribers.
