India reached 1.2 billion telecom users; Reliance Jio leads the pack

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) revealed that the country’s telecommunications subscriber base grew marginally to 1.19 billion by the end of November 2021.   

Reliance Jio also overthrew BSNL as the top provider of fixed broadband services and is leading the segment with 4.34 million customers, dominated by public telecommunications since its inception 20 years ago.  

According to a monthly subscriber report published by TRAI, the wireless customer base in the country was 1.17 billion at the end of November, all while wireless and fixed connections recorded growth during the month.   

“The total number of wireless subscribers increased from 1,166.30 million at the end of October 2021 to 1,167.50 million at the end of November 2021, registering a monthly growth rate of 0.10 percent,” the TRAI report noted.  

Therefore, Reliance Jio guided the growth in the mobile segment in India with a net addition of 20,19,362 customers, taking its total subscriber base to over 428 million. Bharti Airtel added 13,18,251 new mobile subscribers, while Vodafone Idea (VI) continued to lose subscribers, with 18,97,050 customers dropping off the system in November and its total subscriber base fell to 267.12 million.  

State-run telecom companies BSNL and MTNL also failed to gain customers in November, with BSNL losing 2,40,062 mobile customers while MTNL lost 4,318 connections.  

In parallel, the fixed-line connections in the country increased to 23.55 million in November from 23.32 million in October, with private players Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel leading the race. 

Reliance Jio added 2,07,114, Airtel 1,30,902, and Quadrant added 8,287 new fixed-line customers, while the dominant player in the segment, BSNL, lost 77,434 customers in November. Vi lost 38,083 fixed-line customers, Reliance Communications 2,373, Tata Teleservices 2,019 and MTNL 1,828 customers.  

Last but not least, the top five service providers formed 98.68 percent market share of the total broadband subscribers at the end of November, TRAI said.  

“Reliance Jio’s total broadband subscriber base stood at 43.3 crores in November. It was followed by Bharti Airtel with 21 crore broadband customers, Vi at 12.24 crore, BSNL 2.37 crore, and Atria Convergence broadband customer base stood at 19.8 crore,” it noted.  

The Wireless Tele-density in India increased from 85.15 percent at the end of October to 85.18 percent at the end of November 2021.