The number of telephone subscribers in India dropped by 4.85 percent to 1.146 billion users in April, from 1.206 billion in March, which represents a net loss of 58.51 million telephone customers in the month. The overall teledensity in India reached 88.26 percent in April, according to a report from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). In April, around 6.73 million subscribers submitted requests for mobile number portability.
Subscriptions in urban areas decreased from 681.61 million in March to 643.87 million in April, while urban teledensity also fell from 165.90 to 156.48. Rural subscriptions plunged from 524.61 million in March to 503.84 in April, and rural teledensity fell from 59.03 to 56.68.
India’s total mobile (GSM+CDMA) subscriber base increased from 1.183 billion at end-March to 1.125 billion, which represents a quarterly decline of 4.93 percent. Mobile teledensity declined from 91.09 percent in March to 86.52 in April. Private operators held a 89.70 percent market share of India’s wireless subscriber base in April, while state-owned companies BSNL and MTNL had a market share of 10.30 percent.
India’s fixed-line subscriber base fell from 22.81 million at end-March to 22.64 million in April, registering a monthly decline rate of 0.74 percent or 0.17 million users. Fixed teledensity dropped from 1.76 at 31 March to 1.74 in April.
The total number of broadband subscribers increased from 412.60 million at end-March to 419.79 in April, which represents a quarterly growth rate of 1.74 percent. The top five service providers jointly held a 97.42 percent market share of the total broadband subscribers at the end of April. These service providers were Reliance Jio Infocomm (196.19 million), Bharti Airtel (89.70 million), Vodafone (59.91 million), Idea Cellular (42.41 million) and BSNL (20.75 million).
