Reliance Jio adds most subscribers in January, says TRAI

Reliance Jio led the subscription race in January 2018 with an addition of 93.24 lakh subscribers across the country, the highest among all the telecom service providers.

Data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Wednesday showed that the subscriber base of Jio was nearly 29 crore.

The total number of wireless subscribers in the country by the end of January stood at 118.19 crore, higher by 59.74 lakh from December.

"Total wireless subscribers (GSM, CDMA and LTE) increased from 1,176 million at the end of December 2018 to 1,181.97 million at the end of January 2019, thereby registering a monthly growth rate of 0.51 per cent," the TRAI said.

"Out of the total wireless subscribers (1,181.97 million), 1,022.58 million wireless subscribers were active on the date of peak VLR (Visitor Location Register) in the month of January 2019. The proportion of active wireless subscribers was approximately 86.51 per cent of the total wireless subscriber base," it added.

State-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) also witnessed a net increase in its subscriber base, with 9.83 lakh new BSNL connections in January. The total number of BSNL wireless subscribers was 11.53 crore.

Bharti Airtel added 1.03 lakh subscribers in January, to take its subscription base to 34.04 crore.

Vodafone Idea, the largest telecom operator in terms of subscribers, however, lost 35.87 lakh users taking its total base to 41.52 crore, the data showed.