Vodafone Idea lost 2.3 million users in January, not gained, telco error 'inadvertent': Trai

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has released the revised figures for January’s telecom subscribers showing that has lost 2.3 million wireless users instead of a gain of 1.7 million, which was posted by the telco due to an “inadvertent error”.

Trai released a corrigendum to telecom subscription data for the month of January citing an “inadvertent error” made by Vodafone Idea for reporting its subscribers in the Uttar Pradesh (West) circle.

As per Trai data released earlier this month, Vodafone Idea had surprisingly added 1.7 million wireless customers in January for the first time in 14 months.

The gains were reported in Uttar Pradesh West, while the telco lost customers in all other telecom circles, it had said admitting its error recently. India has a total of 22 telecom circles.

As per the corrected figures, Vi had lost 2.3 million wireless users in the month of January while and Reliance Jio had gained 5.9 million and 2 million users respectively.

As of Jan-21, Reliance Jio topped wireless subscriber numbers with a base of 410.7 million, followed by Airtel’s 344.6 million and Vi’s 281.9 million. Their respective market share in the wireless user base were 35.43%, 29.72% and 24.32%.