PTINet subscriber additions from Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio boosted the total telecom user base to more than 116.69 crore in March 2022, telecom regulator TRAI said in its monthly report on Thursday.
Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio led new subscriber additions in both mobile and fixed segments in March.
“The number of telephone subscribers in India increased from 1,166.05 million at the end of February 2022 to 1,166.93 million at the end of March 2022,” according to TRAI’s March Subscriber Report.
The report by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) states that urban telephone tariffs fell from 64.77 million to 64.71 million and rural telephone tariffs increased from 51.82 billion to 51.98 million.
According to the report, the total number of mobile subscribers rose to 114.2 million in March from 114.15 million in February.
Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio were the only winners of new mobile subscribers in March. Airtel’s net mobile subscriber additions in March were 22.55 lakh, while Jio’s net addition was 12.6 lakh.
Vodafone Idea was the biggest loser among mobile subscribers for the month. The company lost more than 28.18 lakh customers.
State-owned BSNL and MTNL lost 1.27 lakh and 3,101 mobile connections respectively.
Private telecom operators drove growth in the wireline (fixed line) segment. The fixed-line subscriber base rose to 2.48 billion in March from 2.45 billion in February.
Reliance Jio continued to lead the growth in the wireline segment with net customer additions of 2.87 lakh. Bharti Airtel added 83,700 new customers, Quadrant 19,683, Vodafone Idea 14,066 and Tata Teleservices 1,054.
BSNL and MTNL lost 67,634 and 15,576 customers respectively in this segment. Total broadband subscribers also grew in March to 78.83 billion from February’s 78.33 billion.
The top five service providers accounted for a 98.48% market share of all broadband subscribers in March.
“These service providers were Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. (40.92 million), Bharti Airtel (21.52 million), Vodafone Idea (12.24 million), BSNL (2.71 million) and Atria Convergence (20 million),” reads the TRAI report.
