India's telecom subscriber base rises to 1,173.89 mn in June; Jio, Airtel prime drivers

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 India's already massive telecom subscriber base has grown further with prime drivers being Jio and Bharti Airtel, sector regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) said on Thursday. The growth was marginal though.

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The subscriber base in India has grown to 1,173.89 million at the end of June. This is on account of new customer additions led by Reliance Jio.

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The subscriber base growth was driven by mobile telephony where Reliance Jio added over 2.27 million new customers and Bharti Airtel added 1.4 million customers.

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"The number of telephone subscribers in India increased from 1,172.57 million at the end of May-23 to 1,173.89 million at the end of June-23," the Trai said in its report.

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It showed a monthly growth rate of just 0.11 per cent. The overall growth was hampered by the loss of subscribers by PSUs like BSNL, MTNL, and of course, Vodafone Idea (Vi).

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BSNL lost 1.87 million mobile subscribers, Vi lost 1.28 million subscribers and MTNL (1,52,912 subscribers).

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The net addition in wireless subscribers of telecom operators in the month of June was 3,73,602. "Total wireless subscribers increased from 1,143.21 million at the end of May-23, to 1,143.58 million at the end of June-23, thereby registering a monthly growth rate of 0.03 per cent," Trai said.

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The total broadband subscribers increased to 861.47 million at the end of June 2023 from 856.81 million at the end of May with a monthly growth rate of 0.54 per cent, the report said.

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Top five service providers constituted 98.37 per cent market share of the total broadband subscribers at the end of June-23.

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These service providers were Reliance Jio 447.75 million, Airtel 248.06 million, Vodafone Idea 124.90 million, BSNL 24.59 million and Atria Convergence 2.16 million, the report said.