BSNL and Reliance Jio together added 86.39 lakh mobile subscribers and the rest of telecom operators jointly lost 69.93 lakh wireless customers
The telecom subscriber base in India recorded a marginal growth in the month of February and reached 120.5 crore lead by a net addition of subscribers by Reliance Jio and government-owned BSNL, as per the latest data published by The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).
BSNL and Reliance Jio together added 86.39 lakh mobile subscribers during the month. However, the rest of telecom operators in the country jointly lost 69.93 lakh wireless customers, with Vodafone Idea lost the largest number of mobile connections.
The number of telecom subscribers in the country increased to 120.54 crore in February as compared to 120.37 crore in the previous month, as per the Telecom Monthly Subscriber Report of TRAI.
Dominated by wireless connection, the sector witnessed an increase in subscriber base of mobile services to 118.36 crore in said month as compared to 118.19 crore in previous month.
Reliance Jio dominated the market
Reliance Jio alone recorded an increase of 77.93 lakh customers, taking its overall subscriber base to 29.7 crore at February end. On the other hand, BSNL added nearly 9 lakh new subscribers, taking its overall customers base to 11.62 crore.
The biggest telecom operator in India Vodafone Idea lost around 57.87 lakh mobile subscribers in the month of February, reducing its overall customer base to 40.93 crore. In February, Tata Teleservices lost 11.47 lakh mobile customers, followed by Airtel losing 49,896 subscribers, MTNL lost 4,652 and Reliance Communication lost 3,611 subscribers.
There is a marginal decline in fixed-line connections, with BSNL losing around one lakh connections in February. However, private players Bharti Airtel and Vodafone added 42,456 and 17,563 fixed-line customers, respectively.
During the period, the broadband subscriber base increased by 1.89 per cent to more than 55 crore from 54 crore. The wireless broadband connections segment dominated the sector with 53.1 subscribers.
Reliance Jio led the broadband subscriber’s market with 29.72 crore customers, followed by Bharti Airtel with 11.21 crore customers. The other players Vodafone Idea has 11 crore broadband customers, BSNL with 2.1 crore subscribers and Tata Teleservices Group with 21.7 lakh broadband customers.
