Reliance Jio only telecom player to add mobile phone subscribers in September

Mobile or wireless subscriber base in the country increased by 0.21 per cent to 116.92 crore in September from 116.69 crore. Reliance Jio was the only telecom operator that gained mobile subscribers while all other operators showed a decline in their customer base. Photo: Aniruddha Chowdhury/Mint

New Delhi: Telecom subscriber base grew marginally by 0.2 per cent to 119.1 crore with only Reliance Jio adding new customers, according to the data released by sector regulator Trai for September 2018. “The number of telephone subscribers in India increased from 1,189.08 million at the end of August 2018 to 1,191.40 million at the end of September 2018, thereby showing a monthly growth rate of 0.2 per cent,” the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India report said.

Mobile or wireless subscriber base in the country increased by 0.21 per cent to 116.92 crore in September from 116.69 crore. Reliance Jio was the only telecom operator that gained mobile subscribers while all other operators showed a decline in their customer base. Mukesh Ambani-led firm added over 1.3 crore mobile subscribers taking its total customer base to 25.2 crore. Vodafone Idea was biggest loser in September. The company lost over 80 lakh mobile customers. Vodafone and Idea subscribers numbers for September month were reported separately.

Bharti Airtel lost 23 lakh mobile customers, Tata Teleservices 10 lakh, BSNL 5.36 lakh, Reliance Communications 16,349 and MTNL 9435.

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While landline segment continued to decline with BSNL losing 71,800 customers, Bharti Airtel gained 16929 customers in fixed line segment and Vodafone added 7080 new fixed line connections.

Broadband subscriber base increased by 3.89 per cent to 48.1 crore. “Top five service providers constituted 97.86% market share of the total broadband subscribers at the end of Sep-18. These service providers were Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd (252.25 million), Bharti Airtel (99.29 million), Vodafone (51.82 million), Idea Cellular (47.90 million) and BSNL (20.12 million),” Trai said.