Jio, Airtel Drive Telecom Subscriber Base In India

Telecom subscriber base in the country grew marginally to 1,173.89 million at the end of June on account of new customer additions led by Reliance Jio, sector regulator Trai said on Thursday.

The subscriber base growth was driven by mobile telephony where Reliance Jio added over 2.27 million new customers and Bharti Airtel added 1.4 million customers.

"The number of telephone subscribers in India increased from 1,172.57 million at the end of May-23 to 1,173.89 million at the end of June-23, thereby showing a monthly growth rate of 0.11 per cent," the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) said in its monthly subscriber report.

However, the overall growth was mitigated by the loss of subscribers by state-owned BSNL, MTNL and Vodafone Idea (VIL).

BSNL lost 1.87 million mobile subscribers, VIL lost 1.28 million subscribers and MTNL (1,52,912 subscribers).

The net addition in wireless subscribers of telecom operators in the month of June was 3,73,602.

"Total wireless subscribers increased from 1,143.21 million at the end of May-23, to 1,143.58 million at the end of June-23, thereby registering a monthly growth rate of 0.03 per cent," Trai said.

After a marginal decline in May, wireline connections increased in June.

The growth in the wireline segment was led by APFPL which added 6,56,424 new connections. It was followed by Reliance Jio with the addition of 2,08,014 connections, Bharti Airtel (1,34,021), V-Con Mobile and Infra (13,100), Tata Teleservices (12,617) and Quadrant added 6,540 connections in June.

The total broadband subscribers increased to 861.47 million at the end of June 2023 from 856.81 million at the end of May with a monthly growth rate of 0.54 per cent, the report said.

"Top five service providers constituted 98.37 per cent market share of the total broadband subscribers at the end of June-23. These service providers were Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd 447.75 million, Bharti Airtel 248.06 million, Vodafone Idea 124.90 million, BSNL 24.59 million and Atria Convergence 2.16 million," the report said.