India adds 19.6 lakh telecom subscribers in March: Regulator TRAI

Indian telecom firms added 19.6 lakh subscribers in March, according to regulator data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Monday.

Bharti Airtel added 10.4 lakh subscribers during the period, taking its subscriber base to 37.1 crore, and Reliance Jio added 30.5 lakh whereas Vodafone Idea and BSNL lost 12.1 lakh and 5.19 lakh subscribers respectively, according to the telecom regulator's data. Reliance Jio's subscriber count exceeded 43 crore. 

Vodafone Idea's mobile subscriber base contracted to 23.7 crore in March from 23.79 crore the previous month.

Top five service providers constituted 98.4 per cent market share of the total broadband subscribers at the end of March 2023, including Reliance Jio Infocomm (43.9 crore), Bharti Airtel (24.2 crore) and Vodafone Idea (12.5 crore), according to the TRAI.

Overall, the number of telephone subscribers in India increased to 117.2 crore at the end of March 2023, marking sequential growth of 0.2 per cent.

Urban telephone subscriptions increased to 65.4 crore at the end of March 23 from 65.2 crore at the end of February 2023, and rural subscriptions increased to 51.9 crore from 51.8 crore.

Overall teledensity in India increased to 84.5 per cent at the end of March 2023, according to the regulator. 

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