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New Delhi
State-owned telecom operator, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) continued to gain mobile subscribers for the second consecutive month with addition of 8.49 lakh customers in September, while private players Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone-Idea lost 79.69-lakh, 14.34-lakh and 15.53-lakh users respectively.
According to sector experts, all three private players saw the decline because of the tariff hikes that they announced in July, ranging between 10 and 27 per cent. The wireless subscriber base of Reliance Jio stood at 46.37 crore in September, while that of Bharti Airtel was 38.34 crore and Vodafone Idea was at 21.24 crore at the end of September.
And, BSNL’s gains in September pushed its subscriber tally to 9.18 crore in the month. The company in October also had announced that unlike the private players, it was not going to hike any tariff, in the near future.
Total subscribers
As per the TRAI data, the total wireless subscribers decreased by 0.87 per cent to 1,153.72 million at the end of September as compared with 1,163.83 million at the end of August.
“Wireless subscription in urban areas decreased from 633.21 million at the end of August to 628.12 million at the end of September, and wireless subscription in rural areas also decreased from 530.63 million to 525.60 million during the same period. Monthly decline rate of urban and rural wireless subscription was 0.80 per cent and 0.95 per cent respectively,” the sector regulator said in the report.
During the month, 13.32 million subscribers submitted their requests for mobile number portability (MNP), it said.
TRAI added that the number of total telephone subscribers in India decreased by 0.78 per cent on monthly basis to 1,190.66 million at the end of September, as compared with 1,200.07 million at the end of August.
While, the urban telephone subscription decreased from to 662.15 million at the end of September against 666.58 million in August, the rural subscription also decreased to 528.51 million from 533.49 million, during the same period.
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