New Delhi: Vodafone Idea lost 34.67 lakh mobile subscribers in February, even as Reliance Jio continued to be on a roll adding 62.57 lakh users. This information has been provided by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) as per the latest data released by the body. In the same period Bharti Airtel’s customer base went up by 9.20 lakh users.
Jio continued to lead the total wireless subscriber tally by a wide margin with a base of 38.28 crore mobile users during the month. Bharti Airtel added 9.2 lakh users during February, and its total mobile subscriber base stood at 32.90 crore. Even state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) garnered 4.39 lakh subscribers in the same month.
In terms of subscriber market share for wireless services, Jio held 32.9 per cent, with Airtel at 28.35 per cent. Vodafone Idea’s share stood at 28 per cent.
The number of telephone subscribers in India (landline and mobile combined) rose to 118 crore at the end of February, a growth of 0.32 per cent over the previous month, TRAI said.
Urban telephone subscription dipped marginally to 66.1 crore at the end of February, but the rural subscription increased to 51.9 crore. Overall wireless subscribers (2G, 3G and 4G) increased to 116 crore at the end of February, a monthly increase of 0.36 per cent, it said.
TRAI said that as per reports received from 341 operators in February, the number of broadband subscribers increased to 68.1 crore at the end of February, registering a growth rate of 1.15 per cent over the previous month.
“Top-four service providers constituted 98.99 per cent market share of the total broadband subscribers at the end of February. These service providers were Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd (383.67 million), Bharti Airtel (146.10 million), Vodafone Idea (118.25 million) and BSNL (24.67 million),” it said.
