Jio, Airtel, Vi record customer loss post tariff hike, BSNL becomes only gainer in July

The impact of mobile phone service tariff hike was evident in July with Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea reporting loss of customer base, which resulted in an overall decline in telecom subscribers in the country. Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea increased their mobile service plan rates in the range of 10-27 % in the first week of July.

Airtel and Vodafone Idea have more than doubled their entry-level mobile rates in the last 2-3 years to Rs 199 that comes with 28 days validity. State-run BSNL was the only player that added new subscribers and led the market in terms of new net customer addition, according to a monthly subscribers report released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Friday.

According to the report, BSNL added over 2.94 million mobile subscribers in July. Bharti Airtel lost 1.69 million mobile subscribers which was highest among its peers. Vodafone Idea and Reliance Jio lost 1.41 million and 758,000 mobile subscribers, respectively.

Overall, the telecom subscriber base in the country declined marginally to 1,205.17 million in July from 1,205.64 million in June. North East, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Mumbai, Kolkata, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Bihar, West Bengal, UP East, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh telecom circles recorded decline in mobile customer base post the hike in mobile services rates.

The wireline or the fixed line connections segment increased by about 1% to 35.56 million in July from 35.11 million in June. Reliance Jio led the fixed-line segment with addition of over 480,000 new subscribers.

It was followed by Bharti Airtel which added over 136,000 new subscribers, VMIPL 12,413, Vi 11,375, Tata Teleservices 3,971 and Quadrant added 12 new fixed line customers.

BSNL was the biggest loser in the segment. The state-run firm lost 134,000 fixed line customers and its sister concern lost 56,454 customers. The broadband customer base in the country increased to 946.19 million at the end of July from 940.75 million in June.

Top five players accounted for 98.42% of total broadband connection in the country.

Reliance Jio led the chart with 488.63 million broadband customers, Airtel with 284.03 million, Vodafone Idea with 126.72 million, BSNL with 29.61 million and Atria Convergence with 2.26 million.

Bharti Airtel led the machine-to-machine cellular mobile connections with 28.46 million subscribers accounting for 53.02 % market share.It was followed by Vodafone Idea Limited, Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited and BSNL with market share of 27.71 %, 13.68 % and 5.58 % share respectively.