Bharti Airtel tops Nov user additions, increases base to 335 mn: Trai data

Increases base to 335 million; Jio still No. 1 with 408 million subscribers

Bharti Airtel topped mobile subscriber addition again in November, outpacing Reliance Jio, according to data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).

During the month, Airtel added 4.3 million users, increasing its base to over 334.6 million. Jio added 1.9 million mobile users, taking its customer count to 408.2 million.

Jio’s net customer additions have slowed in recent months and Airtel seems to have benefitted more from the decline in Vodafone Idea’s market share. Jio has also attributed the slower net customer growth to the farmers’ protests in Punjab. Jio, however, has the highest market share among service providers, with over 35 per cent share of wireless subscribers. Vodafone Idea lost 2.8 million customers in November, shrinking its subscriber count to 289 million. Its market share stood at 25.10 per cent, while that of Airtel increased to 28.9 per cent.

Total active mobile users were 968.42 million and the proportion of active subscribers was 83 per cent of total customer base. Mobile number portability requests rose by 6.81 million month-on-month to 536.41 million in November. 

In the wireline segment, Jio added 195,000 customers. Airtel and Vodafone Idea added 54,499 and 6,257, respectively.  

Total broadband customer base (wireless plus wired) grew 0.99 per cent month-on-month to 742.06 million. 

Jio has 55 per cent market share in the segment, followed by Airtel at 23.5 per cent, and Vodafone Idea at 16.3 per cent.

Jio 5th strongest brand globally

Billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s four-year-old Reliance Jio has been ranked the fifth strongest brand globally behind the likes of Ferrari and Coca-Cola.

The Brand Finance’s Global 500 ranking of the strongest brands globally  is topped by WeChat, according to its annual report on most valuable and strongest global brands. PTI