Bharti Airtel Ltd added more wireless clients to its network than rival Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd in August as the economy continued to reopen, with some activities approaching pre-covid levels. However, Vodafone Idea lost 1.2 million subscribers, losing customers for the 10th month in a row, but less than the previous months affected by the outages led by Covid.
While Airtel added 2.9 million clients in August, Jio registered 1.9 million subscribers, according to data from the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) released on Tuesday.
Airtel gained 0.91% wireless subscriber market share, while Jio’s user base grew 0.47% in August. With 35.08%, Jio is still the largest telecoms player by market share, followed by Airtel with 28.12% and Vodafone Idea with 26.15%, Trai data showed.
Total wireless subscribers increased to 1.15 billion in August from 1.14 billion in July, posting a 0.3% monthly growth. Wireless subscription in urban areas increased from 620.7 million at the end of July to 624.9 million in August, while in rural areas it decreased from 523.5 million to 522.9 million, indicating a reverse migration of workers .
According to a senior Airtel official, the telecommunications company has yet to see the full influx of migrant workers to urban cities like New Delhi and Mumbai. The migrant workers had returned to their places of origin due to a lack of source of income after the national lockdown was imposed in March to contain the spread of the coronavirus.
“In the second trimester, we have seen a lot of people return, it is not as much as it used to be, but between 40 and 50% of the people returned. There are still many people in rural areas who hesitate to return, “the official said.
Fixed-line subscribers increased by 66,771 to 19.9 million at the end of August. “The participation of urban and rural subscribers in the total of fixed telephony subscribers was 89.83% and 10.17%, respectively, at the end of August,” Trai said.
In terms of market share of fixed line subscribers, state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) continues to lead with 39.84%, followed by Airtel with 21.86%. State-owned Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) has a 15.34% market share.
Reliance Jio, which announced lower rate plans to attract more clients to its JioFibre broadband service, added the largest number of fixed line users, 160,794, in August with a market share of 8.92%.
Both Jio and Airtel have rolled out cheaper broadband plans amid the Center’s push to improve cable connectivity as covid-led remote work has significantly increased data consumption and network dependency, leading at slower internet speeds.
BSNL lost the most fixed telephony clients with 97,855 and MTNL recorded a loss of 31,937 fixed telephony clients in August.
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