Jio Added Over 85 Lakh Subscribers in December, Airtel, Vodafone Idea Lost Subscribers: TRAI

Reliance Jio continued to increase its subscriber base in December as other major telecom operators Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel lost users during the period, data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) showed on Wednesday.

Reliance Jio added 85.6 lakh subscribers during the month under review, taking its total subscriber base to 28.01 crore.

"Total wireless subscribers (GSM, CDMA and LTE) increased from 1,171.76 million (117.17 crores) at the end of November 2018 to 1,176.00 million (117.6 crores) at the end of December 2018, thereby registering a monthly growth rate of 0.36 percent," TRAI said in a statement. "The urban subscription increased from 664.54 million at the end of November 2018 to 666.28 million at the end of December 18, and the rural subscription increased from 529.18 million to 531.59 million during the same period. The monthly growth rates of urban and rural subscription were 0.26 percent and 0.46 percent respectively during the month of December 18," it added.

Vodafone Idea, the largest telecom operator in terms of subscribers, lost around 23.32 lakh subscriptions and its base by December-end stood at 41.87 crores.

The total subscriber base of Airtel was 34.03 crores, down 15.01 lakh from November, the data showed.

On region-wise subscription trend, TRAI said that "during the month of December 2018, all service areas except the northeast, showed positive monthly growth in their wireless subscribers".

"In the month of December, 2018, 4.76million subscribers submitted their requests for Mobile Number Portability (MNP). With this, the cumulative MNP requests increased from 407.22 million at the end of November 2018 to 411.98 million at the end of December 2018, since implementation of MNP," TRAI added.