Mobile The impact of the increase in service charges was clearly visible in July. The number of customers of Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea has decreased. As a result, the total number of telecom customers in the country declined. Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea had increased their mobile service charges by 10-27 percent in the first week of July. Airtel and Vodafone Idea have more than doubled their entry-level mobile rates to Rs 199 in the last two-three years. Its validity is 28 days.
Benefit to BSNL, loss to Jio-Airtel
According to the monthly subscriber report released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Friday, public sector Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) was the only company that added new subscribers last month and led the market in terms of net new subscriber addition. According to the report, BSNL added more than 29.4 lakh mobile subscribers in July. On the other hand, Bharti Airtel lost 16.9 lakh mobile subscribers, the most compared to other companies. Vodafone Idea (VI) and Reliance Jio lost 14.1 lakh and 7.58 lakh mobile subscribers respectively. Overall, the telecom subscriber base in the country declined marginally to 120 crore 51.7 lakh in July. It was 120 crore 56.4 lakh in June.
Fixed Customers increased in the line segment
After the increase in rates of mobile services, a decline in mobile subscriber base was recorded in Northeast, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Mumbai, Kolkata, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Bihar, West Bengal, Eastern Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh telecom circles. The number of subscribers in the wireline or fixed line connection segment increased by about one percent to 3 crore 55.6 lakh in July. It was 3 crore 51.1 lakh in June. Reliance Jio remained at the forefront in the fixed line segment by adding more than 4.80 lakh new subscribers. Bharti Airtel added more than 1.36 lakh new subscribers. VMIPL added 12,413, Vodafone Idea 11,375, Tata Teleservices 3,971 and Quadrant 12 new fixed line subscribers. BSNL suffered the biggest loss in this segment. This government company lost 1.34 lakh fixed line customers and its subsidiary lost 56,454 customers. The broadband subscriber base in the country increased to 94 crore 61.9 lakh in July. In June it was 94 crore 7.5 lakh. The top five companies contribute 98.42 percent of the total broadband connections in the country.
