Airtel & 2 other telcos collectively lose over 1 crore mobile subscribers in September; BSNL adds users

Private telcos Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea cumulatively mislaid implicit 1 crore wireless subscribers successful September, adjacent arsenic state-owned BSNL amazed with nett adds of astir 8.5 lakh mobile users, arsenic per monthly information released by TRAI.

Reliance Jio mislaid 79.69 lakh mobile subscribers successful September compared to the erstwhile month, Bharti Airtel (14.34 lakh users), and Vodafone Idea (15.53 lakh users).
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) added 8.49 lakh users to its wireless subscriber tally.

The wireless subscriber basal of Reliance Jio stood astatine 46.37 crore successful September, portion that of Bharti Airtel was 38.34 crore. The wireless idiosyncratic basal of Vodafone Idea was 21.24 crore arsenic of September 2024.

BSNL's gains successful September pushed its subscriber tally to 9.18 crore. It is pertinent to notation that the 3 backstage telcos had hiked mobile tariffs by 10-27 per cent successful July.

BSNL, however, refrained from pursuing the footsteps of its larger rivals, and its Chairman and Managing Director Robert Ravi precocious ruled retired an summation successful tariffs, successful the adjacent future.

"We tin intelligibly accidental we are not going to summation our tariffs successful the adjacent future," Ravi had told reporters successful October. BSNL, successful fact, is looking to proactively woo subscribers and claw backmost marketplace share, and precocious launched a slew of caller offerings and initiatives, ranging from spam blockers to automated SIM kiosks and direct-to-device services.

According to TRAI subscriber data, with the sole objection of Odisha, each different work areas showed a diminution successful their wireless subscribers during September 2024.

"As per the accusation received from 1,167 operators successful September 2024, successful examination to 1,219 operators successful August 2024, the full Broadband Subscribers decreased from 949.21 cardinal astatine the extremity of August-24 to 944.40 cardinal astatine the extremity of September-24 with a monthly diminution complaint of 0.51 per cent," Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said.

As of September 30, 2024, Jio led the illustration of broadband subscribers (wired and wireless) with a subscriber number of 47.7 crore, followed by Bharti Airtel (28.5 crore), and Vodafone India (12.6 crore). BSNL was 4th successful that database with a subscriber number of 3.7 crore.

India's full wireless subscribers decreased to 1,153.72 cardinal astatine the extremity of September 2024, thereby registering a monthly diminution complaint of 0.87 per cent.