Over 12.36 million Indians requested to port their SIM from the existing operator to another telecom operator in the country in January 2024. Consumers have the right to utilise the Mobile Number Portability (MNP) system to port their existing phone number to the other telecom operator's network. There's a process that a person has to follow to port their SIM cards, but it is a fairly simple one.
Watch Now - Airtel Validity and Data Loan Explained
According to the TRAI data published in the monthly performance indicator report of January 2024, a total of 12.36 million MNP requests were received by the telecom operators in India. Out of this, around 7.12 million requests came from Zone-1 and the remaining 5.24 million requests came from Zone-2.
Read More - Jio and Airtel Again Ate Market Share of BSNL and Vi in Jan 2024
MNP was first implemented on November 25, 2010, and since then, a total of 939.55 million MNP requests have been made. In the coming months, it will touch the billion requests figure.
Zone-1 includes the Northern and Western India and Zone-2 includes the Southern and Eastern India. Since most of the users during the month were lost by Vodafone Idea (Vi) and BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited), it wouldn't be too harsh to assume that most of the MNP requests came from their subscribers.
Read More - Jio AirFiber 50 Days Free Offer Explained
Note that MNP requests don't necessarily mean that porting happens. Sometimes, the users make the request but then don't follow through with it and stay with their current operator. According to the TRAI data for the month, Jio added the most wireless users to its subscriber base (resulting in the expansion of its wireless subscriber market share) followed by Airtel. BSNL and Vi continue to lose subscribers and market share to Bharti Airtel and Jio.
Even in the active users department, only Airtel and Jio saw growth, while BSNL and Vi saw a decline in numbers.
