Mobile user base dips for fourth month in a row, shows Trai data

The number of mobile phone users in India decreased by 0.11 million in December, marking the fourth straight month of decline, the latest data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) showed. 

Users have reduced by 0.6 million,1.82 million and 3.66 million in the three months since September.  

In recent months, the number of users had increased by 1.08 million in August, 640,000 in July, and 1.89 million in June.

The decline has been concentrated in rural areas in September, November and December. The number of users in India's vast rural hinterland fell by 0.56 million in December, lower than the 2 million fall registered in November and 3.7 million fall in September.

Meanwhile, the number of users in cities rose by 1.03 million in the latest month, after rising 1.42 million in November.

Voda Idea shrinks

The overall fall could be partly attributed to subscribers leaving Vodafone Idea, which saw its user base shrink by 2.4 million in December. The company had been losing huge number of subscribers every month for the past 7-months. It lost 1.8 million, 3.5 million and 4 million subscribers in the previous three months.

Reliance Jio continued to cement its lead in the Indian telecom market, gaining 1.7 million subscribers in December, up from the 1.4 million additions it has seen in the previous two months.

However, Jio's pace of adding new customers has slowed since August when it got 3.2 million of them.

Bharti Airtel's subscriber count also continued to swell. The company' additions picked up pace in December when it gained 1.5 million subscribers, up from 1.05 million, 0.8 million and 0.4 million subscriber additions in the previous three months.

State-owned BSNL and MTNL lost 0.8 million and 3450 wireless customers, respectively.

Jio had the highest user base in the country, at 424.5 million as of December 30 followed by Airtel at 367.6 million, and Vodafone at 241.3 million.