According to the monthly subscription data released by Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), leading telecom operator, Bharti Airtel added 4.5 million subscribers in April 2018. Airtel's subscriber base now stands at 308 million. Idea Cellular has added the most number of subscribers- 5.5 million during the month, which took the overall subscriber base to 216 million. Surprisingly, on the other hand, Vodafone India lost 6.6 lakh customers during the month and ended April 2018 with 222 million overall subscriber base. COAI did not reveal the numbers lost by Aircel though.
COAI stated that the overall subscriber base increased by 9.39 million. As you might already aware of, Reliance Jio doesn't share its subscriber numbers with COAI and we have to wait until the Trai's Monthly Subscriber report. India's total subscriber base increased to 1049.74 million with the highest number of subscribers in UP East at 91.07 million. During April 2018, Tamil Nadu & Chennai circles registered the highest number of subscriber additions of 1.75 million.
Rajan S Mathews, Director General, COAI said, “We are glad to see the constant growth of the subscribers’ base and expansion of connectivity in the rural areas. With this increasing reach, people are also shifting to 4G technology.”
Aircel' subscriber base at the end of March 2018 stood at 74 million, but it's expected to go down even further in April 2018, thanks to the network issues. Furthermore, Idea Cellular and Vodafone India are expecting the completion of their merger in June, post which the subscriber base of the new entity will be over 433 million, as per the April 2018 subscription data. For the first time, we will have a new market leader, besides Bharti Airtel, which led the chart for years now.
Yesterday, it was revealed that Idea Cellular would hold a meeting on June 26 during which it will announce the new entity name as Vodafone Idea Limited. Also, the telco is expected to raise Rs 15,000 crore. Reliance Jio, as everyone knows is going great guns at the subscriber additions chart and the telco's focus has now shifted towards improving the ARPU with its aggressive foray into the postpaid segment.
