Yet again, Bharti Airtel topped Reliance Jio in monthly mobile subscriber additions for the third straight month. Jio had maintained a leadership position in wireless subscriber additions till July 2020 which was coupled with Airtel's turnaround in subscriber addition that had been falling since March this year - Airtel had added 3.3 million users in July compared to net additions of 3.6 million by Reliance Jio.
That said, Airtel has added 13.6 million new mobile subscribers while Jio settled with a gain of only 9.1 million new subscribers between July and October 2020. Further, Airtel managed to lead with a gap of 1 million in net additions in August which increased to 2.3 million in September, although, the difference reduced to 1.4 million in October. Eventually, its market share, in term of wireless subscribers, inched up by 56 basis points during this period.
On the other hand, continuing the downward spiral, Vodafone Idea lost 2.7 million subscribers during the month while BSNL lost 10,208 users and MTNL lost 7,307 users, respectively, according to the latest TRAI data.
The total wireless subscriber base increased to 1,151.8 million in October from 1,148.6 million in September, registering a monthly growth rate of 0.3 per cent. Wireless subscription in urban areas increased from 626.2 million to 629.3 million while in the rural areas it rose from 522.4 million to 522.53 million, during the said period. Monthly growth rates of urban and rural subscription were 0.5 per cent and 0.02 per cent, respectively, during the month, the TRAI data revealed.
The private access providers had a lion's share of 89.4 per cent of the wireless subscribers, whereas BSNL and MTNL, the two public sector entities had a market share of only 10.62 per cent. The number of active wireless subscribers in October were 960.9 million.