Rise in Portability Requests in June suggests Vodafone Idea users Moving to Airtel, Jio: Report

Jefferies said in a note that the sudden rise in MNP, or mobile number portability, numbers in June shows that customers from Vodafone Idea have started migrating to its rivals Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio. It added that VI’s precarious situation can make matters worse in terms of customer churn.

Vodafone Idea Facing Huge Customer Churn

Per latest data from TRAI, there were 12.27 million MNP requests in June 2021. This took the total number of MNP requests to 605.88 millon, from 593.61 million in May. Jefferies said, “Furthermore, Jio's healthy subscriber additions bode well for the tariff outlook."

Vodafone Idea lost subscribers in all circles except Mumbai. By contrast, Airtel added 2.7 million users in Metros and A-circles each and reported a 1.5 million and 1.6 million decline in B and C circles, respectively.

“Bharti's urban subscriber market share rose 50bps MoM to 28% and has scope to rise further,” Jefferies said. It also pointed out that Vodafone Idea's user base has been stagnant since November 2020. This has remained the case even though the telco managed to add some 1.8 million 4G subscribers. "This is in stark contrast to Bharti and Jio's 22m and 28m 4G sub additions over the same period,” Jefferies remarked.

On the other side, Reliance Jio remained the only telco to report net additions in both urban and rural circles. According to TRAI, the largest telco added 5.5 million subscribers. Furthermore, Airtel and Vi added 4.3 million and 1.8 million 3G/4G subscribers in June, respectively.

Jefferies also said that urban additions have helped with the sector recovery in June; the sector recorder 12 million new 3G/4G users. Overall, the sector’s reported wireless base rose by 4 million. A 4.8 million rise in urban subscribers drove the reported gains.