Telecom subscribers in India grew by 1.91 percent in Nov 2016: R Jio alone scored 16.2 mn

Reliance Jio alone added over 16.2 million in November taking its total subscriber base to 51.87 million within three months of launching its commercial 4G services.

By Priyanka

| Published: Tuesday, February 7, 2017, 18:30 [IST]

On account of large number of additions by Reliance Jio, the number of telephone subscribers in India increased from 1,102.94 million at the end of October 16 to 1,123.96 million at the end of November 16, thereby showing a monthly growth rate of 1.91 percent.

India has 1,123.96 million telephone subscribers

Reliance Jio alone added over 16.2 million in November taking its total subscriber base to 51.87 million within three months of launching its commercial 4G services. The company has also become leader in mobile broadband segment.

According to the data released by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), "The urban subscription increased from 642.37 million at the end of October to 659.03 million at the end of November and the rural subscription also increased from 460.57 million to 464.93 million during the same period. The monthly growth rates of urban and rural subscription were 2.59 percent and 0.95 per cent during the month of November."

The mobile subscriber base increased by 1.96 percent to 1,099.51 million at the end of November from from 1,078.42 million in October.

As on 30th November the private access service providers held 90.96 percent market share of the wireless subscribers whereas BSNL and MTNL, the two Public Sector Utility access service providers had a market share of only 9.04 percent.

Idea Cellular followed Reliance Jio with net addition of 2.52 million new customers. Bharti Airtel added 1.08 million customers, Vodafone 890,794 subscribers, BSNL 831,286, Telenor 486,786, Aircel 302,036, Reliance Communications 156,187, MTNL 3,364.

"Top five service providers constituted 82.39 per cent market share of the total broadband subscribers at the end of November 2016. These service providers were Reliance Jio Infocom Ltd (52.23 million), Bharti Airtel (43.93 million), Vodafone (34.88 million), Idea Cellular (28.4 million) and BSNL (20.39 million)," the report said.

As on November 30, 2016, the top five Wired Broadband Service providers were BSNL (9.95 million), Bharti Airtel (2.03 million), Atria Convergence Technologies (1.14 million), MTNL (1.05 million) and YOU Broadband (0.60 million), the report said.

Meanwhile, the cumulative Mobile Number Portability (MNP) requests increased from 244.39 million to 249.15 million during same period, since implementation of MNP.