SUMMARY
The market share for Vodafone Idea stood at 31.49%
Reliance Jio’s share increased from 30.26% in September to 30.76% in October 2019
Total number of subscribers in India also witnessed a month-on-month growth of 0.80%
Highlighting a slight increase Reliance Jio’s subscriber base in October 2019, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), on Monday (December 30), published its monthly report for October on subscription data of telecom networks in the country.
According to the report, the market share of Reliance Jio increased from 30.26% in September 2019 to 30.76% in October 2019. The market share for Vodafone Idea, which is currently the industry leader, stood at 31.49%. In September 2019, Vodafone Idea had a 31.73% share of subscribers.
Notably, the industry has been witnessing an increase in the market share of Reliance Jio since its launch in 2016. Moreover, if the same patterns continue for a few more months then there is no stopping Reliance Jio in overtaking Vodafone Idea to become the market leader.
Bharti Airtel, which had a 27.52% market share in October 2019, remained at the third spot. Bharti Airtel is followed by state-owned BSNL and MTNL with 9.92% and 0.29% market share respectively.
One of the interesting facts, which the October 2019 report revealed, was that almost every network operator was able to show positive growth in terms of adding new users to their subscriber bases.
During the 31 day period, Reliance Jio added 9.1 Mn users to its subscriber base. While Vodafone Idea added 189K new users, BSNL was able to bring 288K new users to its subscriber base. Moreover, Bharti Airtel also added 82K new users in October 2019.
Overall, the total number of subscribers in India also witnessed a month-on-month growth of 0.80%. From 1,195.24 Mn subscribers at the end of September 2019, the user base has increased to 1,204.85 Mn at the end of October 2019.
The recent TRAI report also highlighted that while urban subscribers increased by 0.55% to 523.16 Mn in October 2019 from 517.29 Mn in the previous month. Additionally, the total number of rural subscription also saw a spike of 1.14% and reached to 681.69 Mn in the reported month from 677.95 Mn at the end of September 2019.
