India’s Telecom Subscriber Base Rises to 1.368 Billion in September: TRAI
The subscriber base stood at 1,360.70 million at the end of August, the data revealed.
Wireless subscribers, including mobile and fixed wireless access connections, rose by 6.94 million to 1,319.19 million, while wireline subscribers increased by 0.29 million to 48.74 million.
Broadband subscriptions grew by 6.47 million during September to 1,107.68 million from 1,101.21 million in August, recording a monthly growth rate of 0.59 per cent.
Mobile number portability (MNP) requests also remained substantial, with 16.77 million subscribers seeking to port their numbers during the month.
Urban telephone subscribers increased to 807.78 million, while the rural subscriber base rose to 560.16 million.
Urban subscribers accounted for 59.05 per cent of the total telephone connections, with rural subscribers making up the remaining 40.95 per cent.
The overall tele-density increased to 95.52 per cent at the end of September from 95.07 per cent a month earlier.
Urban and rural tele-density stood at 155.85 per cent and 61.30 per cent, respectively.
In the broadband segment, Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd led with 541.17 million subscribers, followed by Bharti Airtel Ltd with 388.86 million and Vodafone Idea Ltd with 131 million.
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd had 28.55 million broadband subscribers.
The number of active wireless mobile subscribers stood at 1,212.80 million on the date of peak Visitor Location Register (VLR) during September, accounting for about 93.29 per cent of the total mobile subscriber base.
The number of cellular machine-to-machine (M2M) connections increased from 140.50 million in August to 144.85 million in September.
Bharti Airtel accounted for the largest share of M2M connections at 61.16 per cent, the data added.
TNT KS
