Reliance Jio Leads Active Wireless User Growth, Airtel Tops Overall Subscriber Additions in June: TRAI

India's telecom sector continued to expand in June, with Reliance Jio emerging as the biggest gainer in active wireless users while Bharti Airtel recorded the highest overall subscriber additions, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's (TRAI) monthly subscriber report.

India's total telephone subscriber base increased to 1,348.08 million (or 134.8 crore) at the end of June from 1,343.10 million in May, reflecting a monthly growth rate of 0.37%, the TRAI report said.

Airtel added 3.163 million (31 lakh) subscribers during June, including 2.989 million mobile users and 173,078 wireline connections, making it the largest contributor to overall subscriber growth during the month, the data released by TRAI showed.

Reliance Jio followed with a net addition of 2.291 million subscribers, comprising 2.146 million wireless and 144,057 wireline customers, as per the report.

Together, Airtel and Jio accounted for around 5.454 million, or nearly 87%, of the country's total net subscriber additions during June.

Jio Leads Active Wireless Subscriber Growth

Reliance Jio registered the highest increase in active wireless subscribers during June by adding 3.33 million users based on the Visitor Location Register (VLR), as per ANI.

This lifted Jio's active wireless subscriber base to 498.90 million, giving it a 41.5% share of India's 1,201.06 million active wireless subscribers.

Bharti Airtel added 2.92 million active wireless users during the month, while Vodafone Idea, BSNL and MTNL reported declines in their active subscriber bases.

Wireless, Broadband Continue To Expand

The TRAI report showed total wireless subscriptions rose to 1.30 billion in June from 1.294 billion a month earlier. The wireless base comprised 1.147 billion consumer mobile connections, 134.7 million machine-to-machine (M2M) connections, and 17.8 million fixed wireless access (FWA) subscribers.

Broadband subscriptions also increased, touching 1,087.5 million from 1,080 million in May.

Reliance Jio remained the country's largest broadband provider with 532.2 million subscribers, followed by Bharti Airtel with 379.9 million, Vodafone Idea with 130 million, BSNL with 27 million, and Atria Convergence with 2.45 million, the TRAI report said.

The regulator's data further showed Jio retained leadership in the wireline segment with 15.63 million subscribers after adding 144,057 fixed-line users in June.

The operator also led additions in the 5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) segment with 145,790 new connections, taking its FWA subscriber base to 9.11 million, or 70.5% of the national total, as per ANI.

Jio also remained the only operator offering 5G Unlicensed Band Radio (UBR) fixed wireless services, adding 201,302 subscribers during the month.