Tariff impact: Reliance Jio loses 3.76 million users in October 2024

Losing subscribers for the fourth straight month, Reliance Jio witnessed 3.76 million users leave the telecom operator in October, data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) showed on Monday. Meanwhile, Bharti Airtel reversed three months of decline, and added 1.92 million users, indicating it has overcome the impact of the broad-based tariff hikes imposed by private sector telcos in July.

Market leader Jio's subscriber loss had continued to accelerate till September. But the latest attrition was much lower than the 7.96 million and 4.01 million user loss experienced by Jio in September and August, respectively. In July, the telco had seen 0.76 million users leave its platform.

Cumulatively, the telco has lost 16.48 million users in the past four months, or 3.45 per cent of its total subscriber base of 476.52 million at June-end, data from the telecom regulator showed. Second-largest telco Airtel has so far lost 5.52 million users in 2024. Financially struggling Vodafone Idea (Vi) lost 1.97 million users in October, the highest in the past four months. Among private telcos, Vi had lost the most subscribers for two years till June, when it had lost 0.86 million users.

Meanwhile, state-owned telecom operator-BSNL continued to benefit from the churn in the market, albeit at a lower pace. After losing subscribers for two years, BSNL added 2.9 million, 2.53 million, and 0.84 million users in July, August and September, respectively. The pace of customer additions reduced to 0.51 million in October. With BSNL keeping tariffs unchanged, a large number of subscribers using entry-level plans have shifted to the telco. The loss-making firm is currently aiming to roll out its home-grown 4G network nationwide with 1 lakh towers by the middle of next year.

The three private sector telcos — Jio, Airtel and Vi — raised tariffs in the first week of July. BSNL, which is in losses, did not.

The tariff hikes have also led to SIM consolidation and subscription cancellations, numbers indicated. The overall number of mobile phone connections in India decreased by 3.3 million in October. This was lower than September's 10.1 million, August’s 5.77 million and July’s 9.22 million. Trai data also revealed 13.45 million subscribers had submitted requests for mobile number portability (MNP) in October, slightly up from September's 13.32 million, but lower than August's 14.6 million and 13.68 million in July.