Jio, BSNL add subscribers in February, others lose

Reliance Jio and state-run BSNL were the only telecom operators to broaden their subscriber base in February 2019, according to data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Thursday.

The subscriber base of Jio stood at around 29.72 crore in February, with an addition of 77.93 lakh users over January. Crisis-hit BSNL managed to add 8.99 lakh subscribers taking its total tally to over 11.62 crore users, the data showed.

The total wireless subscriber base in the country stood at around 118.36 crore, with a net addition of 17.07 lakh subscribers during the month under review.

"Out of the total wireless subscribers (1,183.68 million), 1,022.62 million wireless subscribers were active on the date of peak VLR (visitor location register) in the month of Feb-19. The proportion of active wireless subscribers was approximately 86.39 per cent of the total wireless subscriber base," TRAI said in its statement.

The operator with the highest number of subscribers, Vodafone Idea, lost the most users -- 57.87 lakh -- in February, pulling its subscriber base down to around 40.93 crore.

Bharti Airtel, too, eroded its subscriber base by 49,896 users, and by the end of February it had 34.03 crore subscribers, showed the TRAI data.

--IANS

rrb/nir