Airtel adds maximum wireless subscribers in October for third month in a row

For the third month in a row, Bharti Airtel has added the maximum number of wireless subscribers at 3.67 million in October, followed by Reliance Jio which added 2.23 million customers.

Vodafone Idea continues to lose customers with a decline of 2.65 million subscribers. When it comes to wireless broadband customers, Airtel added 4.15 million (primarily 4G users) while Jio added 2.23 million 4G users.

As per data shared by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), though Vodafone Idea lost users overall, it also managed to add broadband users. The company added 0.65 million wireless broadband subscribers while state-run BSNL added 1.09 million users.

Jio is a pure-play 4G operator while Airtel, Vodafone Idea and BSNL offers 2G, 3G and 4G services. Airtel, however, has started discontinuing 3G services in most of the circles and in the next few months, no 3G will be offered by the company across the country.

As in October, Jio is the top mobile operator with a subscriber base of 406.36 million, followed by Bharti Airtel, which has 330.28 million customers. Vodafone Idea comes third with a subscriber base of 292.83 million, followed by BSNL, which has 118.88 million customers.

In terms of wireless broadband users, Jio’s base stood at 406.36 million followed by Airtel at 167.56 million, and Vodafone Idea at 120.49 million.

Competition for 4G users is intensifying as mobile operators try to add and upgrade more users. Currently, there are around 350 million 2G users, primarily on the networks of Airtel, BSNL and Vodafone Idea, who are up for grabs.

As per reports, Jio plans to relaunch its low-cost smartphone or JioPhone, which is a 4G-enabled feature phone, soon. Similarly, Airtel is upgrading many of its 2G users to 4G by offering lucrative tariff plans but Vodafone Idea is lagging in terms of 4G additions. The growth of Vodafone Idea’s new additions and upgrade is much lower than Airtel.

As a result of aggressive stance taken by telcos to onboard new customers, the MNP requests have increased to 8.80 million in October, which could be the highest in over two years. Ever since July, the MNP requests have been rising. For instance, in July, there were 7.53 million MNP requests while in August also, there were 7.53 million MNP requests. In September, the MNP requests increased to 8.71 million. Analysts feel that the increased number indicate that customers are fast changing operators in a bid to get a better deal.