Telecom subscriber base
in the country grew marginally to 119 crore in December 2023, according to a report released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).The number is a slight increase vis-a-vis past month. This growth was primarily driven by new additions from Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel.
The report also highlighted that the broadband subscriber base experienced a similar growth, reaching 90.4 crore. This accounts for approximately 76% of the total subscriber base. In terms of numbers, telephone subscribers in India rose from 1,185.73 million at the end of November to 1,190.33 million at the end of December, indicating a monthly growth rate of 0.39%.
Biggest gainers
Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel were the main contributors to this growth, adding 39.94 lakh and 18.5 lakh mobile subscribers respectively.
Biggest losers
This growth in subscriber growth was offset by a loss of 13.68 lakh mobile customers by Vodafone Idea (VIL), 1.5 lakh by BSNL and 4,420 by MTNL.
Wireline subscribers
The number of wireline subscribers also increased, from 3.15 crore at the end of November 2023 to 3.18 crore at the end of December 2023. Reliance Jio led the new customer addition in this segment by adding 2.46 lakh new subscribers, followed by Bharti Airtel with 82,317 new subscribers, VIL with 9,656, and Quadrant with 6,926. However, BSNL lost 34,250 wireline customers, Tata Teleservices lost 22,628, MTNL 11,325, APSFL 1,214, and Reliance Communications 627 customers.
Wireless connection rule broadband segment
The broadband segment was predominantly made up of wireless connections, which increased slightly to 86.52 crore in December from 85.79 crore in November. Wired broadband connections also saw a growth of 1.46%, increasing to 3.83 crore in December from 3.77 crore in November.
5 biggest broadband service providers
The top five service providers, which constituted 98.35% of the market share of the total broadband subscribers at the end of December, were Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd with 470.19 million, Bharti Airtel with 264.76 million, Vodafone Idea with 127.29 million, BSNL with 25.12 million, and Atria Convergence with 2.23 million.