TRAI April Data: Reliance Jio Blow Bharti Airtel Away; Vodafone Idea Suffers Losses After 2 Months

On Monday evening, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, TRAI, released the Telecom Subscription Data of April 2021. In TRAI April Data, Reliance Jio came out as the clear winner, with almost 10 times as many net users added as rivals Bharti Airtel.

Bumper April for Reliance Jio

As per the sector regulator, the largest telco in the country added 47 lakh net wireless users in April. Bharti Airtel was a distant second with its 5.17 lakh net additions. Incidentally, out of all the telcos in the country, only these two managed to have a net positive customer gain. Vodafone Idea has again suffered a net loss on subscribers, losing more than 18 lakh users in April. Public Sector telcos such as BSNL and MTNL also lost significant user base in wireless.

Also, in terms of market share, Reliance Jio came out as a clear winner, capturing 36.15% of the total market. Bharti Airtel was again at second place, with its 29.83% market share. Vodafone Idea was the only other telco with a double figure market share, with its 23.83%. BSNL and MTNL together had 10.2%, while the bankrupt RCom has 0.001% market share.

TRAI April data shows that Jio has extended its lead at the top, with a total of 422.67 million total subscribers. Bharti Airtel languishes at second place with 352.91 million, and Vodafone Idea is a distant third with 281.90 million.

However, the Sunil Mittal-led telco has the most active users; at 346.95 million active users, it has over 98% of its users actively using its services. Reliance Jio might have the second spot in terms of sheer number of active users with its 335.17 milion, but it comes in third after Vodafone Idea when percentages are taken into account.

The third largest telco has almost 90% of its user base as active users. In contrast, Jio's active users number reflects 78% of its total user base.

A Month of Growth for Telecom as a Whole

Including wireless and wireline subscribers, India now has a telecom market with 1.203 billion subscribers. The sector has grown at 0.19% in April, TRAI said. Apart from that, India's overall teledensity has grown to 88.27%, up by 0.1%. UP East, West Bengal, Kerala, UP West and Gujarat were the circles with the most net additions.

In case of access service providers, BSNL has managed to retain its position as market leader, with 32.15% market share. Bharti Airtel was in second spot, with its 23.76% market share. Reliance Jio has also created a foothold for itself, with over 17% of access users choosing its services. The telco also managed to add the most users in April, with almost 2 million new users joining Jio.

Jio, however, has emerged as a clear market leader in Broadband, having captured almost 55% of the total market. Bharti Airtel take up a quarter of the broadband market, while Vodafone take up almost 16% of the remaining market.