India's telecom sector may soon be dominated by only two players due to the increasing dissatisfaction of users with two other providers in the market.

Data published on Friday by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India reveals that Vodafone Idea Ltd. and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. lost 1.36 million and 1.48 million wireless customers in January 2023, respectively.

Airtel (32.27%) and Jio (37.28%), which hardly grew in January, now control almost 70%  of India’s mobile subscriber base.

According to the reports of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, the number of wireless subscribers in January 2023 in the nation climbed by 0.01% from the previous month to 1,143 million, of which 89.66%, or 1,024.81 million, are active.

Urban and rural areas experienced monthly growth rates of 0.02% and 0%, respectively. On December 31, 2022, India had a total wireless teledensity of 82.57%. On January 31, 2023, it decreased to 82.52%.

In January, 12.40 million requests were submitted only for mobile number portability.

Broadband

In January, the number of broadband customers increased by 7 million to 839.18 million.

More customers chose Wi-Fi in January, with the number of fixed wireless subscribers in India increasing 3.67% sequentially to 1.17 million.

The number of customers to wired broadband rose by 2.23% to 33.11 million.

With 434.02 million subscribers, Jio held a market share of more than 50% in the broadband category, followed by Airtel (237.40 million), Vodafone Idea (125.03 million), BSNL (27.05 million), and Atria Convergence Technologies Ltd. (2.14 million).

New Tariff War

The most recent TRAI data comes at a time when Airtel and Jio are racing ahead with the introduction of 5G services in India, but Vodafone Idea and BSNL have yet to begin catching up. Both Airtel and Jio are currently wooing profitable postpaid customers who may be considering leaving the slow networks in search of a speedier one. Once again, a tariff war is in progress.