Voda Idea, Airtel lost over 4.9 mn users in Sep; Jio and BSNL gained: Trai

Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel lost over 49 lakh users in September this year, while rival Reliance Jio added 69.83 lakh new users to its network, according to data from sectoral regulator TRAI.

Total wireless subscribers (GSM, CDMA and LTE) increased to 117.37 crore at the end of September 2019 from from 117.1 crore at the end of August, a monthly growth of 0.23 per cent, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said.

Wireless subscription in urban areas declined to 65.91 crore at the end of September, while that in rural areas increased to 51.45 crore, it added.

As per the data, Bharti Airtel lost 23.8 lakh users in September to take its total user base to 32.55 crore. Similarly, Vodafone Idea lost 25.7 lakh users in the month to take its total user base to 37.24 crore.

However, Reliance Jio added 69.83 lakh users in September, taking its total user base to 35.52 crore.

As on September 30, 2019, Vodafone Idea had a subscriber market share of 31.73 per cent, Reliance Jio had a market share of 30.26 per cent, and Bharti Airtel of 27.74 per cent.

State-run MTNL saw 8,717 users move out (33.93 lakh user base), while BSNL added 7.37 lakh users to take its total base to 11.69 crore.

The wireless teledensity in India increased from 88.77 at the end of August to 88.90 at the end of September, TRAI said.