Telecom stocks — Reliance Jio, Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel — were trading mixed on Thursday, a day after the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) released its subscription data for June showing a marginal increase of 0.19 percent or 2.22 million in the overall subscribers to 1,172.96 million from 1,170.73 million in May.

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Bharti Airtel was trading over a percent higher at Rs 731 per share on BSE at the time of writing. The company added most number of wireless subscribers at 7.93 lakh customers taking its base to 36.29 crore.

Jio's net additions of wireless subscribers stood at 42.23 lakh taking the number to 41.3 crore subscriber base while Vodafone Idea lost 18 lakh subscribers, leaving it with 25.66 crore wireless subscriber base. Reliance Industries and Vodafone Idea were trading 0.64 percent lower and 0.11 percent lower, respectively, at the time of writing.

BSNL and MTNL also lost 13.27 lakh and 3,038 wireless subscribers, respectively. The total base of wireless subscribers grew to 114.73 crore in June from 114.55 crore in May.

Overall, both urban as well as rural subscribers increased marginally. While urban subscribers rose from 647.81 million to 649.09 million, rural subscription went up from 522.92 million to 523.87 million.

About 90 percent of the market share of the wireless subscription was with private players until June 30 while MTNL and BSNL collectively held the remaining 10 percent.

"Top five service providers constituted 98.47 percent market share of the total broadband subscribers at the end of June 2022. These service providers were Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd (41.91 crore), Bharti Airtel (21.94 crore), Vodafone Idea (12.29 crore), BSNL (2.5 crore) and Atria Convergence (21.1 lakh)," the report said.

Speaking on the telecom sector, Jefferies said that a subdued number of active subscribers was added in June but it sees indications of some stabilization in sim-consolidation. The brokerage remains constructive on the sector and has a 'buy' call on Bharti Airtel.

In a separate development, Bharti Airtel on Wednesday said that it had paid Rs 8,312 crore to the Department of Telecom (DoT) towards dues for spectrum acquired by the company in the recently concluded 5G auctions.

"Airtel has paid four years of 2022 spectrum dues upfront. The company believes that this upfront payment coupled with the moratorium on spectrum dues and AGR-related payments for four years will free up future cash flows and allow Airtel to dedicate resources to single-mindedly concentrate on the 5G rollout," the company said.

Airtel has been provided the allocation letter for the designated frequency bands. E-band allocation was given along with spectrum as promised, said Sunil Bharti Mittal, Founder and Chairman, Bharti Enterprises.

"In my over 30 years of first-hand experience with DOT, this is a first ! Business as it should be," he said.

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