The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) released Telecom Subscription Data as on October 31, 2020. During the month, Bharti Airtel again managed to beat Reliance Jio in monthly subscriber additions, and the story of Vodafone Idea remains the same. According to Trai, Airtel added 3.67 million new customers in October, whereas Jio managed to add just 2.22 million users. Vodafone Idea, on the other hand, lost 2.65 million existing users. Surprisingly, BSNL has lost just over 10,000 existing users in the month. BSNL is the only telecom operator apart from Reliance Jio which added subscribers almost every month since 2016. Airtel also strengthens the active user base with a whopping 96.74% subscribers active on its network.
Bharti Airtel Now Has 96.74% Users Active on its Network
Reliance Jio dominated the telecom industry for nearly four years and the telco amassed 400 million users in no time. But Jio is facing slowed subscriber additions over the last three months. The biggest concern for Jio would be Airtel adding more users, in fact, almost double the subscribers. In October 2020, Airtel added 3.67 million new users that took its overall subscriber base to 330.29 million.
Reliance Jio grabbed 2.65 million new users boosting its overall subscriber base to 406.36 million. Since Vodafone Idea lost 2.65 million users, the telco's overall user base reduced to 292.84 million. BSNL's loss of 10,000 users means the customer base at the end of October stands at 118.98 million.
While Jio is leading the overall subscriber base chart, Airtel is miles ahead in the Active User Base section. Airtel' active user base stood at 96.74% and the same for Jio is 78.59%. Out of Vodafone Idea's 292.84 million active users, the telco currently has 88.78% users active on its network. BSNL users active on the network are just 61.38% (51.59%).
The market share of Reliance Jio at the end of October stands at 35.28%, followed by Bharti Airtel at 28.68%, Vodafone Idea 25.42% and BSNL at 10.33%.
India Registers 8.80 Million New MNP Requests
The same Trai report highlighted a total of 8.80 million MNP (Mobile Number Portability) requests were received in October. It seems like the Vodafone Idea users are aggressively migrating to Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio. Out of the 8.80 million new requests, 4.76 million requests were received from Zone-I, and 4.06 million requests were received from Zone-II. MNP requests increased from 520.80 million at the end of September 2020 to 529.60 million at the end of October 20, since the implementation of MNP.
It will be interesting to see how many subscribers Vodafone Idea loses in November 2020. Reliance Jio will be eager to turn the tables by introducing low-cost 4G Android smartphones.
