Telecom operators Bharti Airtel Ltd. and Vodafone Idea Ltd., as well as state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd., suffered subscriber losses in November 2024, according to the latest data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.
Airtel’s subscriber numbers witnessed an erosion of 11.4 lakh wireless users that month. As a result, the mobile user base of India’s second-largest telco slid to 38.4 crore in November 2024.
Vodafone Idea too suffered subscriber losses in November 2024, with its mobile user count shrinking by 15 lakh users to 20.8 crore customers.
Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. added 12.1 lakh wireless subscribers in November 2024. As a result, the telecom service provider’s total count touched 46.12 crore users that month.
The unlisted subsidiary of Reliance Industries Ltd. reversed the decline of its subscriber numbers in the past four months.
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. too logged subscriber losses this time around. The public sector undertaking had enjoyed subscriber gains in the preceding few months due to tariff hikes by private telcos and SIM consolidation. Last year, in August 2024, BSNL had added 25.3 lakh users following tariff hikes by private telecom operators.
However, BSNL’s wireless subscriber numbers had fallen by 3.4 lakh in November 2024 to end at 9.20 crore users, the telecom regulator’s data showed.
Shares of Bharti Airtel Ltd. closed 0.35% higher at Rs 1,631.55 apiece on the BSE, compared to a 0.75% advance in the benchmark Sensex. Meanwhile, shares of Vodafone Idea Ltd. closed 1.60% higher at Rs 9.51 apiece on the BSE.
– With PTI Inputs
