Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd., India's largest telecom operator, saw about 1.65 crore subscribers exiting the platform over the past four months with the Mukesh Ambani-led company losing 37.6 lakh mobile subscribers in October alone.
Vodafone Idea lost 19.3 lakh mobile subscribers in October, against a decline of 15.5 lakh subscribers the previous month, according to the latest report by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.
The decline in subscriber base for private players follows the tariff hike announced earlier this year. Most private telecom operators proposed tariff hikes in late June, with the revised rates coming into effect from July.
Meanwhile, state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. continued to gain subscribers. BSNL added five lakh customers in October, taking its total gains over the past four months to 68.1 lakh, reflecting increased interest in its affordable plans and improved rural connectivity. The uptick is particularly noteworthy as the public sector unit had been losing ground to private players in recent years.
Sunil Mittal-owned Bharti Airtel Ltd. registered gains of five lakh in October after seeing a dip of 14.3 lakh subscribers the previous month.
The latest data reveals India lost about 33 lakh mobile subscribers on a net basis last month, compared to one crore in September.
Reliance Jio added the most subscribers at 38.4 lakh in October when VLR subscribers—which indicates the active users—are taken into account. This is followed by Airtel at 27.2 lakh and BSNL at 9.5 lakh subscriber additions.
This comes on the heels of the TRAI report on a 20% decrease in complaints against unregistered telemarketers and spam calls, dropping from 1.89 lakh in August to 1.51 lakh in October 2024.
This improvement followed TRAI's directive to operators in August to stop voice promotional calls from unregistered senders. The directive included a two-year blacklist for violators.
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