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The number of telephone subscribers in India increased by 2.92 million to 1,170.73 million at the end of May 2022, data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India showed on Tuesday. In urban areas, the number of subscribers increased by 0.8 per cent to 647.81 million, whereas in rural areas it rose by 2.1 per cent to 522.92 million, data showed. As on May 31, 2022, the private telecom service providers held 89.87 per cent market share of the wireless subscribers whereas BSNL and MTNL, the two PSU service providers, had a market share of only 10.13 per cent.

Bharti Airtel added 1.02 million wireless subscribers during the month, whereas Reliance Jio added around 3.1 million subscribers. On the contrary, Vodafone Idea lost 759,258 subscribers. Notably, except for Assam, West Bengal, Kolkata, Kerala, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana service areas, all others have shown a growth rate in their wireless subscribers during the month of May. During the month, 7.97 million subscribers submitted their requests for Mobile Number Portability (MNP). With this, the cumulative MNP requests so far since its inception increased from 705.54 million at the end of May 2022.

Intra-service area Mobile number portability (MNP) was implemented in 2010 and in the rest of the country in 2011 so that wireless telephone subscribers can retain their mobile numbers when they relocate from one service area to another.