BSNL left behind Jio, Airtel and Vi in terms of adding customers, know who has how many customers

Private telecom companies – Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea Limited (VIL) together lost more than one crore mobile subscribers in September, while state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) surprised everyone by adding around 8.5 lakh mobile users during this period. This information has been given in the monthly data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). Reliance Jio lost 79.69 lakh mobile subscribers in September compared to the previous month. Bharti Airtel lost 14.34 lakh subscribers and Vodafone Idea lost 15.53 lakh subscribers. On the other hand, the number of BSNL’s wireless subscribers increased by 8.49 lakh every month in September.

Which company has how many customers?

In September, Reliance Jio’s wireless subscriber base was 463.7 million, Bharti Airtel’s 383.4 million, and Vodafone Idea’s 212.4 million. BSNL’s subscriber base during this period was 91.8 million. Earlier in July, all three private companies had hiked mobile tariffs by 10-27 percent. However, BSNL refrained from following the footsteps of its bigger rivals. Its chairman and managing director (CMD) Robert Ravi recently ruled out a tariff hike shortly. “We can clearly say that we are not going to increase our tariff shortly,” Ravi told reporters in October.

BSNL is trying to regain market share

BSNL is actively trying to woo customers and regain market share. The company has recently launched several new offerings and initiatives ranging from ‘spam blockers to automated SIM ‘kiosks’ and ‘direct-to-device’ services. According to TRAI’s customer data, all service areas except Odisha witnessed a decline in the number of wireless subscribers during September 2024. TRAI said, “As per information received from 1,167 operators in September 2024 as compared to 1,219 operators in August 2024, the total number of broadband subscribers declined from 94.92 crores at the end of August 2024 to 94.44 crores at the end of September 2024. The monthly decline rate was 0.51 percent.

Total wireless subscriber base down

Jio topped the list of broadband subscribers (wired and wireless) with 477 million subscribers at the end of September 2024. It was followed by Bharti Airtel (285 million) and Vodafone India (126 million). BSNL was fourth on that list with 37 million subscribers. India’s total wireless subscriber base declined to 1153.7 million at the end of September 2024, registering a monthly decline rate of 0.87 percent. The monthly decline rate of urban and rural wireless subscribers was 0.80 percent and 0.95 percent, respectively.