Reliance Jio additions power telecom subscriber base to 1.12 billion: Trai

New Delhi: India’s 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 Infocomm Ltd.

“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% ,” according to a report by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) released Thursday.

The mobile phone subscriber base increased 1.96% to 1,099.51 million at the end of November 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.

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Reliance Jio has also become leader in mobile broadband segment. Idea Cellular Ltd 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.

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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.