India, which is now the most inhabited nation on earth, currently boasts of over 1.1 billion registered mobile connections, the vast majority of which are active, according to the latest market statistics from the country’s communications industry watchdog, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).
With a population of 1.43 billion, which is just greater than that of mainland China, according to the United Nations World Population Dashboard, India had a mobile density of 82.54 per cent at the end of October 2023 courtesy of its 1,151 million mobile connections. Of those, 1,045 million connections, almost 91 per cent of the total, were in active use during October, according to the TRAI’s VLR (visitor location register) statistics that show which lines have been in active use during any given month.
Most of those mobile connections are operated by just a few large service providers. As noted previously, in 2011, India boasted 15 mobile service providers that reported 771 million mobile connections (of which 549 million were ‘active’), and of those service providers, 11 had more than five million connections. Reliance Jio didn’t exist. When Jio launched its 4G services in September 2016, it started from scratch with no customers, but it launched a series of sign-up promotions that meant customers could get services without paying for months on end and within six months it had signed up more than 100 million customers, despite rivals counter-offering their low-cost deals.
Now Jio is (and has been for years) India’s mobile market leader. At the end of October, it boasted 452.4 million mobile connections, giving it a market share of 39.3 per cent. And its customer base and market share are growing each month (Jio added almost 3.2 million connections in October alone).
Bharti Airtel is its main rival. It ended October with 378.1 million mobile connections and a market share of 32.85 per cent. It added almost 353,000 mobile connections in October.
