Reliance Jio adds active users at cost to Airtel, Vodafone Idea’s 2G base

Kolkata: Reliance Jio is the only telco that added active mobile users in August 2023 while its nearest rivals Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea (Vi) suffered losses on this score, latest customer data put out by the telecom regulator showed.

This, analysts said, underlined the telecom market leader had taken away a chunk of its older rivals’ 2G users amid the rising demand for its budget internet-enabled feature phone, Jio Bharat.

Data collated by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) showed Jio added 1.2 million active users, taking its August active user base to 417 million. By contrast, Airtel and Vi lost 0.4 million and 2.9 million such users, shrinking their active user bases to 376 million and 199 million respectively.