As per a TRAI report, the telecom user base in India has now touched 1,198.89 million subscribers as of April 2017. Even then growth rate is low compared to earlier statistics when Reliance Jio made its debut.
In October last year, Reliance Jio launched its free 4G services for a limited time resulting in a telecom user boom. As a result, that month saw the growth rate reach 2.67 percent. A per the report the Mukesh Ambani-owned telco added 19.6 million subscribers. The company accounted for a whopping 87 percent of growth numbers that month. In contrast, the month of April saw an increase of a measly 0.38 percent at 1,174.60 million. Up from March when it stood at 1,170.18 million. This is for total wireless or mobile subscribers.
The TRAI report stated, “The number of telephone subscribers in India increased from 1,194.58 million at the end of March 2017 to 1,198.89 million at the end of April 2017, thereby showing a monthly growth rate of 0.36 percent,”. However, in April, Reliance Jio recorded 3.87 million new user additions, significantly low from 20.2 million in December 2016. Second on the growth list is Bharti Airtel which increased new users to 2.85 million. Up next was BSNL with 0.81 million followed by Vodafone 0.75 million and Idea 0.68 million
On the other side, telcos like Tata Teleservices saw their user base shrink by 1.46 million. Number two on the loser list was Reliance Communications which lost 1.32 million subscribers. Then comes Aircel which cut its user base by 0.33 million. Sistema Shyam cut 0.27 million and MTNL 2,137 at the base of the list.
Coming to the landline telecom report, here also subscribers decreased by 0.42 percent leading to a loss of 0.1 million customers. BSNL lost 1.86 million customers followed by MTNL which lost 7,888 customers. Private companies like Tata Teleservices, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone all recorded new landline customers in April.
