Vi's loss is Jio and Airtel's gain: Jio and Airtel add nearly 1 million subscribers each in Feb

• Vodafone Idea’s subscriber losses refuse to stem as it lost over 2 million subscribers in February.
  
• Its rivals Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel have added nearly 1 million subscribers each.
  
• The total telecom subscriber base also fell by 1.1 million during February to 1,142 million.
  

Vodafone Idea’s subscriber losses refuse to stem as it lost over 2 million subscribers in February. Its rivals Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel have added nearly 1 million subscribers each, according to data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

The total telecom subscriber base also fell by 1.1 million during February to 1,142 million.

Vi’s total subscriber base at the end of February stood at 237.9 million, Jio’s at 427.1 million, and Airtel’s at 369.8 million. Airtel continued to lead the industry in terms of the rate of active subscribers – 99.25% of its subscribers have an active plan, as compared to Jio at 93.08%, and Vi at 87.55%.

Jio and Airtel have been nibbling away at Vi’s market share for several months now. The last time Vi reported a net addition in its subscribers was back in March 2021. Since then, the telco has lost nearly 46 million subscribers, while Jio has added 4.3 million subscribers and Airtel, 17.4 million.

Vodafone’s subscriber loss accelerated after Jio and Airtel launched 5G services in October. Since then, Vi has lost 11.2 million subscribers, while Jio has added 7.2 million subscribers and Airtel has added 5.7 million users to its network.

In terms of active subscribers, too, Jio and Airtel have been the better performers, increasing their active subscriber base by 4 million, while Vi reported a decline of 0.8 million.

However, the gap between all the three telcos continued to widen. Reliance Jio is continuing to pull ahead of its peers Airtel and Vi as it is adding more active subscribers.

“Reliance Jio's leadership in active subscriber additions and Bharti's market share gains amongst 3G/4G subscribers should keep both telcos amenable to higher tariffs, which in turn bodes well for the growth outlook for both Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio,” a Jefferies report said.

Subscriber churn remains elevated across the industry

The total subscriber churn in the telecom industry continued to remain elevated, staying above the 10 million mark for the eighth consecutive month at 11.2 million in February.

“We believe that the telecom industry will continue to consolidate with Top 2 (Jio and Airtel) players gaining subscriber share at expense of peers,” the analysts at Prabhudas Lilladher said.

Reliance Jio reported a net profit of ₹4,716 crore in the March quarter. Results of its peers Airtel and Vi are yet to come in.

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