BENGALURU: Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Infocomm Limited (Jio) closed the month of November 2017 (Nov-17, month ended 30 November 2017) with 152.08 million wireless broadband subscribers having added 6.12 million subscribers (grown by 4.19 percent). As per Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) data, the number of wireline broadband internet subscribers in India has declined 0.13 million from 17.98 million in Oct-17 to 17.85 million in Nov-17. This decline in wireline broadband internet subscribers is more than the 0.06 million decline in Oct-17 and the decline of 0.07 million subscribers in Sep-17.
Overall broadband internet service providers
The top five service providers constituted 92.92 percent market share of the total broadband subscribers (wired, mobile wireless, fixed wireless) at the end of Nov-17. These service providers were Jio (152.08 million), Bharti Airtel (69.38 million), Vodafone (50.16 million), Idea Cellular (32.90 million) and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited or BSNL (21.37 million).
Wireless broadband internet service providers
The fastest growth rate in mobile wireless internet subscribers was by Idea Cellular – its subscriber base increased by 6.03 percent (grew 1.87 million) in Nov-17. Jio had the second fastest growth as per the numbers mentioned above followed by Bharti Airtel Limited that grew 3.77 percent (added 2.44 million subscribers) in Nov-17, followed by Vodafone India. Vodafone’s wireless internet subscribers grew 3.59 percent or by 1.74 million. With the exit of Reliance Infocomm due to restructuring, BSNL entered the top five wireless broadband internet list in Nov-17. The public sector telecom player had 11.94 million broadband internet subscribers at the end of Nov-17.
Top five wireline broadband internet service providers
As on 30 November 2017, the top five Wired Broadband Service providers were BSNL (9.43 million), Airtel (2.14 million), Atria Convergence Technologies or ACT(1.27 million), Mahanagar Telecom Nigam Limited or MTNL (0.94 million) and Hathway Cable & Datacom (0.69 million). Airtel, ACT and Hathway gained 0.01 million subscribers each in Nov-17, while the public sector BSNL and MTNL lost 0.05 million and 0.2 million subscribers respectively.
Overall, the combined subscriber base of the top five wireline broadband internet service providers lost 0.04 million subscribers in Nov-15. This means that the rest of the players besides the top five players lost another 0.09 million subscribers.
Other broadband internet service providers
MSOs and cable video service providers (LCOs) also provide wired broadband internet services in the country. These cable service providers have a number of subsidiaries and alliances, hence broadband numbers are split as applicable. The consolidated subscription numbers of these entities could be larger than the numbers of some of the wired internet services providers mentioned above. However, it must be noted that some of these MSOs and LCOs could have lost subscribers in November 2017, considering the fact that the top five wired broadband internet services providers have lost only 0.04 million of the 0.13 million wireline internet subscribers in November 2017.
Notes: (1) TRAI reports indicate data in millions of numbers up to 2 decimal places. Hence it is assumed in this report that a figure of 0.51 million (5.1 lakh) subscribers for You BB for Dec-2015 would be granular to the nearest 10,000. While percentages have been mentioned up to two decimal places, the accuracy may vary, depending upon the exact number.
Also Read:
Jio continues leading broadband subs addition while wireline internet loses subs in Oct
Wireline broadband subs base falls, overall broadband subs base grows
Aug-17:Jio leads broadband subscriber growth, BSNL leads wireline subscriber decline
