Reliance Jio Added Highest Number Of Wireless Subscribers In June 2021

Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio has outperformed Sunil Bharti Mittal-led Airtel in terms of wireless subscribers added during the month of June. As per the telecom regulatory authority of India (TRAI), Reliance Jio added 54 lakh on its May’s total wireless subscriber base of 43.1 Cr, thus taking the total wireless subscriber to 43.6 Cr in June.  Maharashtra contributed the most for Reliance Jio with 3.7 Cr users.  As per TRAI, Bharti Airtel saw a net addition of wireless base users of 38 lakh over its May’s total wireless subscriber base of 34.8 Cr, thus resulting in 35.2 Cr in June. 

Troubled Vodafone Idea, saw its wireless subscribers decline by 42.8 lakh from 27.7 Cr in May of this year to 27.3 Cr in June. Government-owned BSNL’s wireless subscribers dropped to 11.53 Cr in June 2021 from 11.63 Cr in May 2021.  Overall, TRAI reported that India saw a net addition of 39 Lakh subscribers from 117.6 Cr of wireless subscriber base in May this year to 118.03 Cr in June 2021. 

TRAI highlighted that out of the total wireless subscribers 118.03 Cr, 98.4 Cr wireless subscribers were active on the date of peak visitor location register (VLR) in the month of June-21. The proportion of active wireless subscribers was approximately 83.40% of the total wireless subscriber base. VRL data is used to determine the number of active users on a mobile network. The report highlighted that Bharti Airtel has the highest proportion of its active wireless subscribers at 97.62%, followed by Vodafone Idea which stood at 88.43%, and Reliance Jio at 77.94%. MTNL posted the minimum proportion of VLR at 17.78%. While urban wireless subscribers are growing at the rate of 0.75% on a monthly basis, rural telephone wireless subscribers fell by 0.15%.

As per market share, Reliance Jio continues to dominate the wireless segment with 36.98% market share, followed by Bharti Airtel’s 29.82%, Vodafone Idea at 23.15% and BSNL at 9.77%. It is to be noted that Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh were the only two states which saw a decline in the number of wireless subscribers. In terms of wirelines, BSNL enjoyed a market share of 34.42%, followed by Bharti Airtel with 22.72%, Reliance Jio at 17.92%, MTNL at 13.18%, and others. Overall India’s total telecom subscribers including wireless and wireline subscribers stood at 120.2 Cr in June a rise by 0.34% from May. 

In terms of mobile number portability, a total of 1.2 Cr requests were received of which 73.1 Lakh requests were received from Zone-I (Northern and Western India) and 49.5 Lakh requests were received from Zone-II (Southern and Eastern India). The report highlighted that the cumulative MNP requests increased from 59.3.Cr in May to 60.5 Cr in June end. Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh posted the highest number of MNP requests with 4.9 Cr and 4.7 Cr respectively.

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