India’s telecom sector has dramatically changed over the past decade, with new players eating the market share of established telecom companies. A particularly noteworthy development in this transformation is the profound impact of Reliance Jio’s entry, leading to an impressive adoption rate of telecom services among the Indian population, surpassing 83%. Therefore, the growth of telephone subscribers in India has stagnated. The number of telephone subscribers in India increased a negligible 0.39% MoM and 1.70% YoY, reaching a total of 1.19 billion by the end of December 2023. Over 97% of these were wireless telephone subscribers, according to the latest data by TRAI.
The number of mobile phone subscribers in India reached 1.16 billion by the end of December 2023, with a marginal increase of 0.37% MoM and 1.36% YoY. This negligible growth suggests that a majority of Indians, be it in rural or urban areas, now have a mobile connection. The growth of wireless/mobile phone subscribers in both rural (1.78% YoY) and urban (1.02% YoY) areas has stagnated in 2023.
India’s top three five mobile telephone service providers as of December 31, 2023 were Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd with 459.81 million subscribers, Bharti Airtel with 381.73 million, and Vodafone Idea with 223.05 million subscribers.
Predictably, Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio experienced the most substantial subscriber growth, adding an impressive 3.99 million mobile subscribers in the last month and 35.30 million in the 12 months ended December 31, 2023.
Bharti Airtel maintained its position as the second-largest telecom provider in India, acquiring 1.85 million in the last month and 14.12 million in the last 12 months during the period ending December 31, 2023. In contrast, Vodafone Idea faced challenges as it consistently lost subscribers to the top two telecom service providers. In the entire 2023, VI lost 18.28 million wireless subscribers in India.
Active Wireless Subscribers: Airtel’s Surge and Jio’s Dominance
Even though Reliance Jio has added more wireless telephone subscribers than Airtel, the latter gained more active subscribers. Specifically, in December 2023, Airtel experienced a noteworthy addition of 3 million active subscribers, surpassing Jio’s addition of only 1.21 million active subscribers.
Zooming out to analyze the broader picture, Jio emerged victorious in the annual addition of active wireless subscribers in India. Jio added an impressive 33.54 million new active mobile subscribers, bringing the total count to 424.51 million by the end of December 2023. On the other hand, Airtel added 12.56 million new active wireless subscribers, resulting in a total count of 377.54 million at the year-end.
On the contrary, Vi faced significant challenges, losing 1.84 million active users in just one month and a substantial 12.9 million in the 12 months ending December 31, 2023. This brought Vi’s total active users to 196.68 million at the end of the year.
Out of the total 1,158.49 million wireless subscribers, a whopping 90.5% or 1,047.88 million wireless subscribers were active on the date of peak Visitor Location Register (VLR) in December 2023. In simpler words, approximately 91% of the mobile subscribers in India were actively using their mobile services at the specified time.
Bharti Airtel boasted the maximum proportion, with 98.90% of its active wireless subscribers in comparison to its total wireless subscribers on the date of peak VLR in December 2023. In contrast, Jio had a slightly lower percentage at 92.32%, while Vi showcased 88.18% of its total mobile subscribers actively engaged. This comprehensive analysis provides insights into the robust user engagement levels among various telecom providers in India.
Other Key Highlights:
- The number of broadband subscribers in India reached 904.54 million in 2023. Although the monthly growth rate remained minimal at 0.88% in December 2023, the yearly growth was 8.69% in 2023.
- As of December 2023, the top five broadband service providers in India were Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd with 470.19 million subscribers, Bharti Airtel with 264.76 million, Vodafone Idea with 127.29 million, BSNL with 25.12 million and Atria Convergence with 2.23 million subscribers.
- As of December 31, 2023, India’s top five mobile broadband service providers were Reliance Jio Infocom Ltd with 459.81 million subscribers, followed by Bharti Airtel with 257.37 million, Vodafone Idea with 127.28 million, BSNL with 21.28 million and Intech Online Pvt. Ltd. with 0.24 million subscribers.
In December 2023, Mobile Number Portability (MNP), providing users with the flexibility to switch from one telecom operator to another, registered a total of 12.44 million requests in India. It is expected that a significant number of these requests could be from Vodafone Idea users opting to switch to either Reliance Jio or Aitel connections. This decision might be influenced by factors such as improved network availability and faster 5G download speeds offered by India’s top two telecom operators.
