Driven by Reliance Jio and Airtel, India's telecom subscriber base grows to 119 crore

Telecom subscriber base in the country grew marginally to 119 crore in December 2023, according to a report released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). The figure represents a marginal rise over the previous month. Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel's recent additions were the main drivers of this increase.

The research also showed that the number of broadband users increased similarly, totaling 90.4 crore. Approximately 76% of all subscribers are represented by this. India's telephone subscriber count increased by 0.39% month over month from 1,185.73 million at the end of November to 1,190.33 million at the end of December. This growth in subscriber growth was offset by a loss of 13.68 lakh mobile customers by Vodafone Idea (VIL), 1.5 lakh by BSNL and 4,420 by MTNL.

By the end of December 2023, there were 3.18 crore wireline customers, up from 3.15 crore at the end of November 2023. In this category, Reliance Jio added the most new customers (2.46 lakh), followed by Bharti Airtel (82,317 new users), VIL (9,656), and Quadrant (6,926). On the other hand, Tata Teleservices lost 22,628 subscribers, APSFL 1,214, MTNL 11,325, and BSNL 34,250 wireline consumers. Reliance Communications lost 627 customers.

Wireless connections accounted for the majority of the broadband market, with a modest increase to 86.52 crore in December from 85.79 crore in November. The number of wired broadband connections increased by 1.46% as well, from 3.77 crore in November to 3.83 crore in December.

At the end of December, Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd had 470.19 million broadband subscribers, followed by Bharti Airtel with 264.76 million, Vodafone Idea with 127.29 million, BSNL with 25.12 million, and Atria Convergence with 2.23 million. These five service providers accounted for 98.35% of the market share of all broadband subscribers.

• Reliance Jio
• Airtel
• Vodafone
• telecom
• MTNL
• BSNL