Reliance Jio, India's leading telecom operator, has added the most active wireless users in the month of April 2023. The telco's active user base went up from 402.57 million to 407.25 million. Note that these are wireless active users we are talking about. Jio's total wireless subscriber base stands at 433.27 million in April 2023. This means that over 93.99% of its users were active during the month. Jio is the only telco in the country with an active user base above 400 million.
Read More - Jio and Airtel Add a Total of Close to 7.5 Million Active Users in March 2023: TRAI
Bharti Airtel trails second with over 370.29 million active wireless users. Airtel's active user base went up from 369.56 million in March 2023 to 370.29 million in April 2023. The telco has an impressive VLR percentage of 99.63%. This basically means that over 99.63% of its wireless user base was active during the month of April 2023. Note that the data has been published by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).
This means that Airtel added only about 0.73 million active wireless users. But Jio added 4.68 million wireless active users. However, it is worth noting that when it comes to average revenue per user (ARPU), Airtel stood at Rs 193 at the end of Q4 FY23, while Jio stood at Rs 178.8, so Airtel is much ahead here.
Vodafone Idea (Vi) saw its active user base falling down from 207.88 million to 207.05 million in April 2023, while BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited) saw a decline from 53.66 million to 53.27 million in April 2023. This means that Vi lost 0.83 million active wireless users while BSNL lost 0.39 million active users. Vi's total wireless subscriber base stands at 233.76 million, while BSNL's stands at 102.97 million.
The absence of 5G has definitely hurt the chances of Vi adding new active wireless users, and BSNL is still working its way to launching homegrown 4G. Both telcos need to start adding subscribers to make a positive difference in their business performance.
