Airtel adds subscribers at Vi’s expense in December 2020: TRAI Report

As the year 2020 drew to a close, we saw Airtel stealing the limelight for new wireless subscriber additions from Jio which seemed to be losing momentum on net additions (But Jio’s steadily improving VLR indicates that it has started to deactivate inactive subscribers). Vi on the other hand continued its downward slide with constant subscriber losses. In the wireline connections, the private operators narrowed the gap with the PSU operators, indicating an imminent shift of market dominance.

The overall wireless subscriber base decreased marginally by 1.43 million from 1155.20 million at the end of November to 1153.77 million at the end of December 2020. The overall wireline subscriber base decreased marginally by 0.02 million from 20.07 million at the end of November to 20.05 million at the end of December 2020.

Wireless Subscriber Market share:

As of 31st December, 2020 Reliance Jio is leading with 35.43% wireless subscriber market share which translates to 408.78 million subscribers, Bharti Airtel is at second position with 28.97% market share (338.74 million subscribers), whereas Vodafone Idea comes third with 24.64% market share (284.28 million subscribers). BSNL commands 10.29% (118.72 million) while MTNL commands just 0.29% market share (3.34 million).

Wireless Subscriber Gain/Loss in December:

Bharti Airtel led the new wireless subscriber addition race in December 2020 with 4.05 million net additions, Reliance Jio reported a meagre 0.47 million net adds. Vodafone Idea lost over 5.6 million subscribers in December. While BSNL lost over 0.25 million wireless subscribers and MTNL lost over 6 thousand.

Active subscriber base, VLR data:

Visitor location register (VLR) is an indicator of what percentage of the total subscriber base is comprised of active users. Bharti Airtel leads the race with a VLR score of over 97% which implies it has the lowest inactive user base of 9.84 million, it is followed by Vodafone Idea with a score of over 90% (inactive user base 27.68 million). Reliance Jio has a VLR score of over 80% (inactive user base 80.8 million), whereas BSNL lags behind with a score of 51% (inactive user base 57.36 million).

Wireline subscriber market share:

BSNL continues to lead with 35.75% share of the wireline subscriber market share in October 2020, which translates to 7.16 million subscribers. Bharti Airtel commands 22.77% share (4.56 million subscribers). MTNL follows with 14.76% share (2.95 million subscribers). Reliance Jio holds 13.74% share (2.75 million subscribers). Vodafone Idea holds only 2.6% share (0.52 million subscribers).

Wireline Subscriber Gain/Loss in December:

Reliance Jio added over 2.3 lakh new wireline connections in December 2020, followed by Bharti Airtel who added over 48 thousand new connections. Vodafone Idea added only 210 new wireline connections whereas MTNL lost over 23 thousand. BSNL continued the trend of losing subscribers with the loss of over 2.5 lakh connections in December.

Broadband subscriber market share:

Broadband is considered when the speed offered is higher than 512 Kbps irrespective of it being a wired or wireless connection. As on 31st December 2020, the top five Wired Broadband Service providers by subscriber base were BSNL (7.70 million), Bharti Airtel (2.81 million), Reliance Jio Infocom Ltd (2.07 million), Atria Convergence Technologies (1.78 million), and Hathway Cable & Datacom (1.05 million). The top five Wireless Broadband Service providers were Reliance Jio Infocom Ltd (408.77 million), Bharti Airtel (176.19 million), Vodafone Idea (120.77 million), BSNL (18.62 million) and Tikona Infinet (0.31 million).