Reliance Jio adds 91 lakh new customers in Oct; Vodafone Idea, Airtel recover from subscriber loss: TRAI

Reliance Jio added 91 lakh new subscribers in October, according to data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). The total subscriber base of Reliance Jio is now 36.43 crore. Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea that were losing customers for a while now also added subscribers in October. Vodafone Idea added 1.9 lakh new subscribers, while Airtel added 81,974 subscribers, taking their subscriber base to 37.27 crore and 32.56 crore respectively.

While Reliance Jio added significantly more subscribers than its rivals, Vodafone Idea still remains the largest network in terms of subscriber base. Interestingly, Reliance Jio's increase in numbers comes at a month that saw the telecom charging customers for calls to other telcos.

Reliance Industries (RIL) announced on October 9 that it would charge customers 6 paise per minute for voice calls made to other network.

The TRAI report also showed that the number of wireless telecom subscribers rose to 118.34 crore in October from 117.37 crore in September. "Total wireless subscribers (2G, 3G and 4G) increased from 1,173.75 million at the end of September 2019 to 1,183.40 million at the end of October 2019, thereby registering a monthly growth rate of 0.82 per cent," the report mentioned.

Wireless subscribers also increased in October. "Wireless subscription in urban areas increased from 659.18 million at the end of September 2019 to 662.92 million at the end of October 2019, and wireless subscription in rural areas also increased from 514.56 million at the end of September 2019 to 520.48 million at the end of October 2019. Monthly growth rates of urban and rural wireless subscription were 0.57 per cent and 1.15 per cent respectively," it added.

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