New Delhi: The decision of the country's three telecom companies to increase mobile tariffs in the last week of June 2024 after the Lok Sabha elections is now taking a toll on them. Due to the expensive tariffs, the number of customers of these companies has declined drastically for the third consecutive month. The biggest blow has been suffered by Reliance Jio, the telecom company of Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Group. According to telecom sector regulator TRAI, Reliance Jio has lost 7.9 million i.e. 79 lakh customers in September 2024.

Big drop in Jio customers

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has released the data of the country's telecom subscribers for September 2024. According to this data, the number of mobile customers of Reliance Jio has decreased by 7.9 million i.e. 79 lakhs in the month of September. In the month of August, the number of customers of Reliance Jio was 47.17 crores, which has come down to 46.37 crores in the month of September.

Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel

The third largest mobile company Vodafone Idea is in second place in terms of customer loss. The number of customers of the company has decreased by 15 lakhs. Vodafone Idea had a total of 21.40 crore customers in August, which has come down to 21.24 crore in the month of September. Bharti Airtel's mobile customers have also decreased. The number of subscribers of the company has come down by 14 lakhs to 38.34 crores.

BSNL benefited

However, while all three private telecom companies have lost customers, the number of customers of government telecom company BSNL has seen an increase in the month of September. The number of wireless customers of BSNL has increased by 8.49 lakh in the month of September and it has reached 9.18 crore in September.

Know why the loss occurred?

All the three private telecom companies Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea announced a 10 to 21 percent hike in mobile tariffs on 27 and 28 June 2024, which came into effect from the first week of July 2024. Now this decision is proving to be costly for these companies, while the number of customers of BSNL, which has not increased the tariff, is seeing an increase for three consecutive months.