Telecom Subscriber Base in India Crossed 1.12 Billion in November: TRAI

Telecom subscriber base grew by 21.02 million to cross 1.12 billion at end-November 2016 on account of large number of additions by Reliance Jio.

"The number of telephone subscribers in India increased from 1,102.94 million at the end of October 2016 to 1,123.96 million at the end of November 2016, thereby showing a monthly growth rate of 1.91 percent," a report by telecom regulator TRAI said on Thursday.

The mobile subscriber base increased by 1.96 percent to 1,099.51 million at the end of November from from 1,078.42 million in October.

Reliance Jio alone added over 16.2 million in November taking its total subscriber base to 51.87 million within three months of launching its commercial 4G services. The company has also become leader in mobile broadband segment.

Idea Cellular followed Reliance Jio with net addition of 2.52 million new customers.

Bharti Airtel added 1.08 million customers, Vodafone 890,794 subscribers, BSNL 831,286, Telenor 486,786, Aircel 302,036, Reliance Communications 156,187, MTNL 3,364.

Quadrant, which has announced closure of its operation, lost 69,211 customers, Sistema Shyam 288,720 and Tata Teleservices lost over 1 million subscribers.

Out of the total wireless subscriber base (1,099.51 million), 968.83 million wireless subscribers were found active in November.

After registering minute growth in about two decades, landline connection again declined marginally to 24.44 million at the end of November from 24.52 million in October.

The growth in broadband subscriber base also fell in November.

The number of broadband subscribers slightly declined to 218.26 million at the end of November from 218.42 million in October.

"Top five service providers constituted 82.39 percent market share of the total broadband subscribers at the end of November 2016. These service providers were Reliance Jio Infocom Ltd (52.23 million), Bharti Airtel (43.93 million), Vodafone (34.88 million), Idea Cellular (28.4 million) and BSNL (20.39 million)," the report said.

As on November 30, 2016, the top five Wired Broadband Service providers were BSNL (9.95 million), Bharti Airtel (2.03 million), Atria Convergence Technologies (1.14 million), MTNL (1.05 million) and YOU Broadband (0.60 million), the report said.