In a surprising turn of events, only Reliance Jio has added new wireless subscribers in May 2021. It’s strange to see Bharti Airtel losing subscribers. Vodafone Idea and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) carry on with losing wireless subscribers for consecutive months. What’s even stranger is that the number of subscribers which Bharti Airtel lost is more than Vodafone Idea’s figures. Reliance Jio is continuing its prime form and has added more than 3 million users in May 2021.
Reliance Jio Adds 3+ Million Subscribers While Vi and Airtel Lost 4 Million Users
As per the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) monthly report, Reliance Jio added 3,554,722 (3.5 million) subscribers in May 2021. At the same time, the state-run telco BSNL lost 930,814 (0.93 million) subscribers. Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea lost 4,613,521 (4.6 million) and 4,281,532 (4.2 million) subscribers. It is worth noting that during this period, India was at the peak of the second wave of COVID-19. Because of this, there were multiple lockdowns, and people hesitated to go out and buy new SIM cards. However, this doesn’t seem to have impacted Reliance Jio, which added 3.5 million subscribers. For comparison, Reliance Jio had added 4.7 million subscribers in April 2021, while Airtel had only added 0.5 million users, and BSNL and Vi had lost 1.3 million and 1.8 million subscribers. This means that both Vi and BSNL have lost millions of subscribers in consecutive months while Jio has shown impressive performance. If both Airtel and Vodafone Idea go ahead with a tariff hike right now, the numbers should only become better for Jio while worse for Airtel and Vi. As per the TRAI report, Reliance Jio had 36.64% of the wireless subscribers market share, which is way more than Bharti Airtel’s 29.60%, Vodafone Idea’s 23.59%, BSNL’s 9.89%, and Reliance Communications 0.001% share. It will be interesting to see when the operators will go ahead with another tariff hike.
