Airtel overtakes Jio in 4G users, adds 5.29 million customers in June – The Financial Express

As per data shared by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), Airtel’s 4G user base stood at 148.84 million in June as compared to 143.55 million in May.

The fight to grab 4G customers is turning out to be interesting with Bharti Airtel adding 5.29 million 4G customers in June, higher than Reliance Jio, which managed to add 4.5 million users. However, on an aggregate basis, Airtel has lost 1.12 million customers in June but that could be because of 2G users, who left the company’s network.

As per data shared by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), Airtel’s 4G user base stood at 148.84 million in June as compared to 143.55 million in May.

Similarly, Vodafone Idea added 3.39 million 4G customers in June though its overall mobile subscriber base declined. Vodafone Idea’s 4G base stood at 116.44 million in June as against 113.05 million in May. In terms of the total mobile user base, Vodafone Idea lost 4.82 million subscribers while Airtel lost 1.12 million. State-run BSNL, which has been usually adding mobile subscribers in recent months, also lost 1.74 million customers. As a result, the overall mobile subscriber base in June decreased to 1,140.71 million from 1,143.91 million in May.

As on June, the mobile subscriber base of Reliance Jio stood at 397.24 million followed by 316.67 million of Airtel and 305.10 million of Vodafone Idea. BSNL has 118.21 million mobile subscribers as on June 2020.

June was the month which saw pick up in 4G additions for incumbents. In fact, in April, when the whole country was under lockdown due to Covid-19, all operators lost 4G users, barring Reliance Jio, which continued to add new subscribers. Bharti Airtel CEO Gopal Vittal too had highlighted the slowdown in 4G additions for the April-June period. The 4G subscriber base of Airtel in March stood at 146.10 million but in April, the base declined to 142.33 million. The company though returned to net 4G additions in May with 1.22 million net adds. But quarterly (April-June), the net additions stood at around 2 million.

The data indicates that fewer number of people are now buying 2G connections. The decrease in mobile user base tells that due to lack of economic activity in June, the sale of new 2G mobile connections was yet to take off. People, however, are upgrading to 4G as most of the things move to digital.

Another interesting thing is that wireline broadband subscribers also rose by 2.29% in June as most people worked from home. The wireline broadband base increased to 19.82 million in June from 19.38 million in May. Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel added the maximum number of wired users while BSNL continues its losing spree.