Reliance Jio adds over 79 lakh mobile subscribers in March

India's largest telecom operator Reliance Jio gained over 79 lakh, mobile users, in March, comfortably surpassing the combined net adds by rivals Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea during the month, according to data released by TRAI on Friday.

Bharti Airtel added 40.5 lakh wireless users, and interestingly Vodafone Idea gained 10.8 lakh customers during March (compared to the previous month).

Reliance Jio added a staggering 79.18 lakh wireless subscribers in March, taking its customers base to about 42.29 crore.

Jio had topped net additions in February also -- the Mukesh Ambani-led company had added over 42 lakh users at that time.

According to March data released by TRAI on Friday, Airtel's user base swelled to 35.23 crore as on March 2021. Vodafone Idea added 10.8 lakh subscribers in March, as its customer base jumped to 28.37 crore.

The monthly subscriber data by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) showed that the total number of telephone subscribers in India increased to 120.1 crore at the end of March 2021, a monthly growth rate of 1.12 per cent.

"The monthly growth rates of urban and rural telephone subscription were 0.92 per cent and 1.37 per cent, respectively during the month of March 2021," TRAI said in a statement.

The total wireless subscribers increased to 118 crore at the end of March, logging monthly growth rate of 1.13 per cent. Wireless subscription in urban areas increased to 64.5 crore at the end of March and that in rural areas rose to 53.5 crore during the same period.

"Monthly growth rates of urban and rural wireless subscription were 0.93 per cent and 1.38 per cent respectively," TRAI said.

The private operators held 89.6 per cent market share of the wireless subscribers on March 31, 2021, while state-owned BSNL and MTNL had 10.32 per cent share.

"As per the reports received from 421 operators in the month of March 2021, the number of broadband subscribers increased from 765.09 million (76.5 crore) at the end of February 2021 to 778.09 million (77.8 crore) at the end of March 2021 with a monthly growth rate of 1.70 per cent," the telecom regulator said.

The top five service providers constituted 98.82 per cent market share of the total broadband subscribers.

Among these service providers were Reliance Jio (42.5 crore), Bharti Airtel (19.1 crore), Vodafone Idea (12.3 crore), TRAI said.