Reliance Jio, BSNL together add over 8 Mn telecom subscribers in April

In a positive development compared to March, the telecom subscriber base witnessed a slight increase, 0.02%, from 1183.51 million to 1183.77 million.

This was largely driven by wireless subscription addition, which drew half a million, by Reliance Jio and BSNL, who after many months gained customers in April.

Jio added about 8.08 million customers whereas BSNL gained over 2.32 lakh customers in April, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's (TRAI) report.

All the other telecom networks such as Bharti Airtel, Tata, Vodafone Idea, MTNL and R Com lost their customer base. Bharti Airtel lost 3.28 million mobile customers, Tata Teleservices 2.95 million, Vodafone Idea 1.58 million, MTNL 4,170 subscribers and R Com 108 customers, added the report.

Jio with about eight million addition in its customer base took its total subscriber base to 314.8 million. BSNL, only second customer gainer, saw its mobile customer base rise to 115.89 million.

The changes were reflected in wireless subscriptions market share. With 27.08% market share, Jio market share rose close to Airtel, which slided to 27.67%. BSNL also witnessed 0.02% increase in market share while all other lost market share.

In March, Jio was only telecom network to gain subscribers whereas all other telecom operators lost subscribers. Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel witnessed a downfall in subscribers base by nearly 14.5 million and 15.1 million respectively (29.6 million together). Tata and BSNL subscribers base down by 1 million and 523K in March.

Meanwhile, Wireless urban subscription increased from 669.16 million at the end of March to 670.86 million at the end of April, however, the rural subscription declined from 514.35 million to 512.91 million during the same period.

The landline subscriber base further declined to 21.47 million in April, from 21.70 million in March with BSNL 2,27,596 customers.

The number of broadband subscribers increased 1.53 per cent to 571.95 million in April from 563.31 million in March with mobile devices accounting
for over 96 per cent of total connections.

Out of 317 broadband service providers, top-five service providers constituted 98.68 per cent market share of the total broadband subscribers April.