Vodafone Idea loses 42.8 lakh mobile users in June

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Vodafone Idea continued losing mobile subscribers, and in June the troubled telco lost about 42.8 lakh subscribers, as its user base shrank to 27.3 crore. This had compounded the woes of the debt-ridden company which is struggling to stay afloat. According to the first-quarter results released by the telco, the total gross debt (excluding lease liabilities and including interest accrued but not due) as of June 30, 2021 of VIL stood at Rs 1,91,590 crore, comprising of deferred spectrum payment obligations of Rs 1,06,010 crore and adjusted gross revenue (AGR) liability of Rs 62,180 crore that are due to the government.

Chairman of Vodafone Idea Ltd, Kumar Mangalam Birla recently stepped down within two months of offering to hand over Aditya Birla Group’s stake in the telco to the government. This was done to avert a major crisis for the telecom company.

Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel gains from Vodafone’s loss

“As per the reports received from 440 operators in the month of June, 2021, the number of broadband subscribers increased from 780.27 million (about 78 crore) at the end of May-21 to 792.78 million (about 79.2 crore) at the end of June-21 with a monthly growth rate of 1.60%,” the data by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) showed. The top five service providers constituted 98.7%  market share of the total broadband subscribers at the end of June.

“These service providers were Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd (439.91 million), Bharti Airtel (197.10 million), Vodafone Idea (121.42 million), BSNL (22.69 million) and Atria Convergence (1.91 million),” Trai said.

TRAI’s subscriber count scorecard for June comes amid an existential struggle of mobile operator Vodafone Idea in a three-player market.

Overall, the number of telephone subscribers in India increased to 120.2 crore at the end of June 2021, a monthly growth rate of 0.34%. Urban telephone subscription was up, but the rural subscriptions declined marginally in June.

On the other hand rivals, Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel added 54.6 lakh and 38.1 lakh customers due to the setback faced by Vodafone Idea Ltd, according to monthly data by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).

Jio’s mobile subscription base had increased to 43.6 crore in June. While, Bharti Airtel’s mobile subscription base increased to 35.2 crore, according to TRAI’s telecom subscription data.