It has been a tough time for the telecom sector of India. With the pandemic and several lockdowns, telcos have been operating in losses. But it is not the same with Reliance Jio. While major telcos such as Vodafone Idea Limited and Bharti Airtel lost wireless subscribers, Reliance Jio gained a lot of them and surprisingly with it, BSNL also saw an increase in the number of subscribers on the month of May 2020. Both Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea Limited lost around the same number of wireless subscribers. The total number of wireless subscribers which the telecom industry lost in the month of May 2020 is 56,11,339 (5.6 million).
Reliance Jio the Top Gainer, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone together Lose 9.4 Million Wireless Subscribers
Even at the time when every telecom company in India was struggling to operate, Reliance Jio made itself a fortune with all the investments and with that gained many new subscribers as well. In the month of May 2020, Reliance Jio gained 36,57,794 (3.6 million), wireless subscribers. Along with Jio, BSNL gained 2,01,592 (0.2 million) wireless subscribers and MTNL lost 1,528 wireless subscribers.
As for Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea Limited, both the telcos lost many of their wireless subscribers. Airtel lost 47,42,840 (4.7 million) subscribers and Vodafone Idea lost 47,26,357 (4.7 million) subscribers. Both the telcos together lost nearly a million subscribers in the month of May 2020.
Percentage wise growth of wireless subscribers for telcos was — Reliance Jio (+0.94%), BSNL (0.17%), MTNL (-0.05%), Bharti Airtel (-1.47%), and Vodafone Idea (-1.50%).
Coming to the active subscribers, Bharti Airtel witnessed the maximum percentage (96.63%) of active wireless subscribers against its total wireless subscribers in the month of May 2020. MTNL, on the other hand, witnessed the least proportion of VLR (19.30%) in the month of May 2020.
Talking about the telephone subscribers in the country, they decreased to 1,163 million at the end of May 2020, from 1,169 million at the end of April 2020, implying a monthly decline rate of 0.49%. Telephone subscribers in the Urban areas reflected a decline in growth rate with numbers falling down from 647.19 million at the end of April 2020 to 637.85 million at the end of May 2020. But in rural areas, the numbers increased from 522.24 million at the end of April 2020 to 525.82 million at the end of May 2020.
