Telecom subscriber base rose to 1.074bn in September on the back of Reliance Jio

The formal launch of Reliance Jio in September led to a 1.98 percent increase in the telecom subscriber base to 1074.24 million in the country at September-end, according to TRAI.

"The number of telephone subscribers in India increased from 1,053.40 million at the end of August 2016 to 1,074.24 million at the end of September 2016, thereby showing a monthly growth rate of 1.98 percent," the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India said today.

Notably, the previous two months saw a consecutive decline in the subscriber base. In July and August, telecom subscriber base declined by 0.1 percent and 0.52 percent respectively.

"Total wireless subscriber base increased from 1,028.88 million at the end of August 2016 to 1,049.74 million at the end of September 2016, thereby registering a monthly growth rate of 2.03 percent," TRAI said.
Also, for the first time, TRAI noted down the customer base of Reliance Jio in its monthly subscriber report, saying 15.97 million customers joined Jio’s network.

Jio was followed by Bharti Airtel that added 2.43 million customers to its user base. While Idea and BSNL added 1.91 million and 1.4 million customers respectively, Vodafone net customer addition in September was 525,281.

In terms of growth, State-run BSNL which was also the first to roll out plans to take on Jio topped with 1.52 per cent growth in its customer base followed by Idea, Bharti Airtel, Aircel and Vodafone.

Also, the broadband subscriber base in the country grew by around 12 percent driven by 3G and 4G uptake in the mobile segment. "Top five service providers constituted 78.62 percent market share of the total broadband subscribers at the end of September 2016. These service providers were Bharti Airtel (46.19 million), Vodafone (35.94 million), Idea Cellular (30.72 million), BSNL (21.60 million) and Reliance Communications Group (16.74 million)," TRAI said.

In September 4.99 million subscribers requested for mobile number portability taking the total number of requests to over 239 million.