Second Covid wave: April sees sharp fall in new telecom users, says Trai

The telecommunications (telecom) sector became a victim of the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. It saw a sharp decline in subscriber addition at 2.16 million in April, according to the latest data by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).

This is one-sixth of the user addition in March, which was at 13.25 million, revealed the data by the regulator.

State governments had imposed lockdowns to curb the spread of the pathogen in April — a move that derailed economic activity.

The number of telephone subscribers in India increased from 1,201.2 million at the end of March to 1,203.47 million at the end of April, thereby showing a monthly growth rate of 0.19 per cent.

Urban telephone subscriptions increased from 663.77 million at the end of March to 664.34 million at the end of April; rural subscriptions also increased from 537.42 million to 539.14 million during the same period.

The monthly growth rates of urban and rural telephone subscriptions were 0.08 per cent and 0.32 per cent, respectively, in April.

Vodafone Idea (Vi) lost 1.8 million users in April, after gaining subscribers for two months. Reliance Jio added 4.8 million wireless users in April and Bharti Airtel added 0.5 million, according to the data.

In wireless subscribers, Mukesh Ambani-led Jio topped with 427.67 million users, followed by Airtel with 352.91 million and Vi trailing with 281.9 million at April-end.

In the fixed wireline segment, Jio was the top gainer, adding 194,800 new connections, whereas Airtel gained 59,305. With this, Jio has narrowed its gap with Airtel in the wireline category, holding 3.5 million subscribers, against the latter’s 4.7 million.

In April, 9.67 million subscribers submitted requests for mobile number portability.