Reliance Jio Infocomm (RJio), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries (RIL), has added 8.18 million users in May, taking its total subscriber base to 322.98 million. The company, which is the latest entrant in to the telecom space, is also the second-largest telecom firm by way of subscribers.
The addition comes at a time when incumbents such as Vodafone Idea Ltd (VIL) and Bharti Airtel were losing customers. VIL’s – which continues to be the largest operator - subscriber base fell by 5.7 million to to 387.55 million, while Bharti Airtel lost 1.51 million to 320.38 million users in May, according to data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).
Tata Teleservices (TTSL) lost 1.4 million users during the month under review, while State-owned Mahanagar Nigam Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) lost 10,888 customers. TTSL had a total of 11.47 million users and MTNL recorded a total user base of 3.4 million subscribers.
Among the gainers were Reliance Communications, which added 476 users, and State-owned BSNL, which added 2,125 wireless subscribers in May.