Vodafone Idea (Vi), a struggling Indian telecom operator has managed to add some active users in September 2023. While the numbers aren't great, they are better than being negative. Vi lost millions of active subscribers for several months and that led to the telco's active subscriber base declining below 200 million. But in September 2023, Vi surprised the industry by adding wireless subscribers. The telco has added subscribers despite not offering 5G.
Let's get down to the numbers of each of the telecom operators in September 2023. Note that the data has been provided by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).
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Active Subscriber Addition/Subtraction of Vi, Airtel, Jio and BSNL
In Sep 2023, the leading telecom operator to add active wireless users was Reliance Jio. Jio added 3.13 million active wireless users MoM (month over month). Bharti Airtel added merely 0.61 million active wireless users. The cash-strapped and non-5G telecom operator, Vi added 0.4 million active wireless users. This is a positive development for Vi.
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BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited), a state-run telecom company, lost 0.63 million active wireless users. The total active subscriber base of all the telcos at the end of Sep 2023 was:
- Jio - 420.27 million
- Airtel - 376.15 million
- Vodafone Idea - 199.79 million
- BSNL - 49.99 million
BSNL's active subscriber base has dipped below 49.99 million. The subscriber addition would only come if the state-run telco can manage to roll out 4G shortly in many parts of India.
In terms of overall subscriber base, Jio is the leading telecom operator with Airtel at the second rank. Here's the total subscriber base of each of the telcos at the end of Sep 2023:
- Jio - 449.21 million
- Airtel - 377.78 million
- Vodafone Idea - 227.53 million
- BSNL - 93.67 million
During the month, over 12.65 million MNP (mobile number portability) requests were made by users across India.
