Reliance Jio Added 94 Lakh Subscribers in March, Followed by Idea: TRAI

The monthly TRAI subscriber report is out and the total telecom subscriber base increased in March by a monthly growth rate of 2.24 percent. The number was at 117.98 crores at the end of February, and at the end of March, the number is up at 120.62 crores. Private sector units continued to do well, while public sector units like MTNL and BSNL had a market share of only 9.45 percent. While Bharti Airtel continued to hold the most amount of market share in the wireless telecom sector, Reliance Jio's growth rate continued to remain high.

In the month of March, Reliance Jio managed to add more than 94 lakh subscribers taking its total subscriber base to 18.65 crores, the report states. Idea remained second at 91 lakh additions to its subscriber base, bringing its total to 21.12 crores. Idea managed to rake in these many subscribers by offering lucrative low tariff plans recently. Bharti Airtel came in third with 84 lakh subscriber additions, and Vodafone stands in fourth with 56 lakh subscriber additions.

Even though Jio is growing rapidly, Airtel continues to hold the winning position with 25.70 percent telecom market share at 30.41 crore subscribers. Vodafone holds 18.82 percent market share with 22.26 crore subscribers, and Idea holds 17.85 percent share with 21.12 crore subscribers. Jio sits at the fourth position with 15.76 percent market share with 18.65 crore subscribers. Worth noting that Vodafone and Idea's merger is in its final stages, and together, they look to topple Airtel's domination, and give Reliance Jio better competition in the market.

While all of the above telcos show growth, other operators like MTNL, RCom, and Telenor saw loss of subscriber base. MTNL saw a loss 7,700 subscribers, RCom lost nearly 5 lakh subscribers, and Telenor lost more than 13 lakh subscribers in the month of March. When it comes to the total wireless subscribers in the country, the number increased from 115.6 crores in February to over 118.3 crores in March.

Coming to broadband, the number of subscribers increased from 39.21 crores at the end of February to 41.26 crores at the end of March with a monthly growth rate of 5.24 percent.

Is the Reliance Jio effect spreading to postpaid connections in India? We discussed this on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.