As per the report of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI)- Telecom Subscription Data, Bharti Airtel added three times more wireless subscribers than Reliance Jio in January 2021.
The monthly data provided by the regulatory authority indicates that January brought more than 5.89 millions people subscribing to wireless services of New Delhi-headquartered Bharti Airtel, whereas, the Mumbai-based Jio witnessed an addition of over 1.95 million new wireless subscribers.
After Airtel and Jio, Vodafone Idea after several months gained 1.71 million subscribers, and government-run BSNL welcomed 81,659 new subscribers. On the list, MTNL lost 8,312 subscribers, followed by Reliance Communications that saw the loss of 625 625 subscribers, leaving using their services.
Despite the results of the month, Jio continues to maintain the top position in the telecom sector with the largest wireless subscriber base in the country.
The TRAI data informs that the total wireless subscriber base of Jio crossed 410.73 million in January. Airtel, the wireless subscriber base reached 344.60 million.
The market share of Jio declined slightly to 35.30 per cent in January from 35.43 per cent in December. Airtel, however, gained a bit and reached 29.62 per cent from 29.36 per cent market share in December 2020.
In terms of monthly growth rate, Airtel saw a growth of 1.74% wireless subscribers followed by Vodafone Idea with 0.60% and Jio with 0.48% wireless subscribers.
The monthly report saw, in January 2021, the UP (W) service area showed the maximum growth of 6.45% in its wireless subscriber base, while Mumbai showed a negative of 0.28%
The website of Telecom ABC defines VLR as “ A database in a mobile communications network associated with a Mobile Switching Centre (MSC). The VLR contains the exact location of all mobile subscribers currently present in the service area of the MSC. This information is necessary to route a call to the right base station. The database entry of the subscriber is deleted when the subscriber leaves the service area.”
Similarly, as per the Visitor Local Register (VLR) data on active wireless subscribers, for January, Airtel had the maximum proportion with 335.77 million active wireless (VLR) subscribers. However, Jio managed with 324.52 million VLR subscribers.
The TRAI data reveals a growth rate of 0.84% in the total wireless subscriber base in India reaching 1,163.41 million in January from 1,153.77 million in December.
Wireless subscription in urban setups increased to 634.97 million by the January-21 end from 629.67 million by December-20 end, and wireless subscription in rural areas saw a peak of 528.44 million from 524.11 million during the same period. Monthly growth rates of urban stood at 0.84%, while rural wireless subscription was at 0.83%.
TRAI also inferred that the private players held 89.50% market share of the wireless subscribers, whereas BSNL and MTNL, the two PSU access service providers, had a market share of only 10.50%, as of 31st January, 2021.