Telecom subscriber base grows marginally to 119.9 crore in March: Regulator

Telecom subscriber base in the country grew marginally to 119.9 crore in March due to new additions by Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel, according to a Trai report released on Friday.

The broadband subscriber base rose to 92.4 crore, as per the monthly subscriber report published by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).

"The number of telephone subscribers in India increased from 1,197.75 million at the end of February 2024 to 1,199.28 million at the end of March 2024, thereby showing a monthly growth rate of 0.13 per cent," the report said.

Reliance Jio added 21.4 lakh mobile subscribers, while Bharti Airtel onboarded 17.5 lakh customers.However, Vodafone Idea (VIL) lost 6.8 lakh mobile customers, state-run BSNL 23.5 lakh and MTNL 4,674 subscribers.

Wireline subscribers increased to 3.37 crore at the end of March 2024 from 3.31 crore at the end of February 2024.

Reliance Jio led the new customer addition in the wireline segment by registering 3.99 lakh new subscribers.It was followed by Bharti Airtel, which added 2,06,042 new subscribers and 39,713 users joined VIL.

The total broadband subscribers increased from 91.67 crore at the end of February 2024 to 92.40 crore at the end of March 2024, with a monthly growth rate of 0.80 per cent.

The broadband segment was dominated by wireless connections, which grew to 88.32 crore in March from 87.64 crore in February.

The wired broadband connections grew 1.52 per cent to 4.06 crore in March from 3.94 crore in February.

The top five service providers constituted 98.36 per cent market share of the total broadband subscribers at the end of March 2024.

"These service providers were Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd 481.07 million, Bharti Airtel 273.23 million, Vodafone Idea 127.69 million, BSNL 24.70 million and Atria Convergence 2.25 million," the report said.