Reliance Jio lost five times more subscribers than Vodafone Idea in the last six months

• Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) telecom subscriber data for the month of February 2022 was another month of record subscriber loss for Mukesh Ambani’s Jio.
  
• The Ambani-led telco lost 3.7 million subscribers, the first time that it has lost subscribers for the third consecutive month.
  
• Airtel was the only telco to gain subscribers, and Vodafone Idea’s subscriber loss continued to worsen.
  

The Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio continues to lose millions of subscribers every month. In fact, Jio’s subscriber loss is so bad, it makes the troubled Vodafone Idea’s losses look timid in comparison.

According to data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Jio lost over two times more subscribers than Vodafone Idea in February – while Vodafone Idea lost 1.5 million subscribers, Jio lost nearly 3.7 million subscribers.

On the other hand, Airtel continued to strengthen its subscribers base, adding 1.6 million users in the same period.


While Vodafone Idea has been struggling to reduce its subscriber attrition rates, Reliance Jio has been actively losing subscribers for the past two quarters.


In the six months since September 2021, Reliance Jio has lost millions of subscribers in four months. While Vodafone Idea has lost subscribers in all of these months, too, its losses were at an average of 1.2 million per month.

Overall, Jio lost over five times more subscribers than Vodafone Idea in the last six months.


Airtel, on the other hand, added nearly 4 million subscribers in the same period.

Glass half full – active subscriber rate continues to improve

As of February 2022, the total wireless subscribers in India stood at over 1,141 million. A positive outcome of Reliance Jio shedding its flab is that the rate of total active subscribers has continued to increase.

Month	Total subscribers (in million)	Active subscribers (in million)	Active subscriber rate
Sep-21	1,166	996	85%
Oct-21	1,166	997	86%
Nov-21	1,168	996	85%
Dec-21	1,155	1,001	87%
Jan-22	1,145	1,007	88%
Feb-22	1,142	1,016	89%

Source: TRAI

The result of shedding inactive subscribers by the millions is that Reliance Jio now has a definitive lead over its arch-rival Airtel, with the gap widening every month.


The last time Airtel had a lead over Jio in this metric was June last year. Since then, Jio has slowly but steadily increased its market share.

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