Reliance Jio With 36.9 Crore Users Emerges As Largest Telecom Player: TRAI

Reliance Jio has become the largest telecom player with 36.9 crore mobile subscribers in November 2019, according to the data published by telecom regulator Trai on Thursday. Vodafone Idea reported a total mobile subscriber base of 33.62 crore and Bharti Airtel at 32.73 crore customers for November 2019. Total telephone subscribers in the country declined by 2.4 per cent to 117.58 crore in November from 120.48 crore in October.

Mobile subscriber base, which dominates overall telecom connections, declined by 2.43 per cent to 115.43 crore in November from 118.34 crore in October with Vodafone Idea losing the highest number of subscribers. Vodafone Idea lost 3.6 crore customers in the month.

Reliance Jio added 56 lakh new customers, followed by Bharti Airtel which added 16.59 lakh new subscribers and BSNL 3.41 lakh. Fixed-line connections also declined to 2.12 crore in November 2019 from 2.14 crore in October.

BSNL continued to record a dip in subscriber base. BSNL lost 1.64 lakh fixed line customers and its subscriber base slipped to seven digits for the first time at 98.3 lakh. Reliance Jio fixed line customer base reached 7 digits to 10.23 lakh with addition of 43,198 new connections.

The number of broadband subscribers in the country grew by 2.67 per cent to 66.12 crore in November from 64.4 crore in October. "Top five service providers constituted 98.99 per cent market share of the total broadband subscribers at the end of November 2019," Trai said.

Reliance Jio Infocomm led the chart with 37 crore subscribers, Bharti Airtel 13.99 crore, Vodafone Idea 11.98 crore, BSNL 2.25 crore and Atria Convergence 15 lakh, as per Trai data.