Jio adds 8.54 million users in July as Airtel-Vodafone Idea combine lose 6 million
19 Sep 2019
Reliance Jio added 8.54 million mobile phone subscribers in July, taking its overall subscriber base to 339.7 million while the two older operators, Airtel and Vodafone Idea, lost a combined 6 million subscribers, according to Trai data.
The overall telephone subscribers in India, mobile and landline combined, increased to 118.9 crore at the end of July, registering a growth of 0.2 per cent from the previous month.
Sunil Mittal-led Bharti Airtel (including Tata Teleservices numbers) lost 2.58 million mobile users during the month, bringing down its subscriber base to 328.5 million, while Vodafone Idea lost 3.39 million customers as its base fell to 380 million, as the two telcos continued to experience subscriber churn.
Fund-starved BSNL also added an 2.88 lakh mobile users in July, shoring up its user base to 116 million subscribers.
Overall telephone subscriber base in both urban and rural India saw a growth. While urban subscribers increased to 678 million in July from 675 million in June, number of rural subscribers increased to 511 million, data released by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) showed.
The overall teledensity in India increased to 90.23 per cent at the end of July.
The number of broadband subscribers increased to 604 million by July-end, rising 1.60 per cent over the previous month.
"Top five service providers constituted 98.95 per cent market share of the total broadband subscribers at the end of July '19," it said.
Reliance Jio led the tally in broadband (download speeds greater than or equal to 512 Kbps) subscriber numbers with 339.79 million, followed by Bharti Airtel (123.94 million) and Vodafone Idea (110.92 million).