BSNL adds subscribers as pricey private telcos fail to retain user base

India’s three private sector telecom operators - Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea -reported a combined loss of 10.8 million wireless subscribers over the three months ended September 2024 after the three telcos effected a tariff hike between 11 and 25 per cent in July this year.

State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), on the other hand, added nearly 8.5 lakh new wireless subscribers over the three months, scoring over private players for the first time, data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) showed.

Data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) show that the country’s largest telecom operator, Reliance Jio Infocomm lost 7.9 million mobile phone connections in the thrtee-month period while its peers Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea lost 1.5 million and 1.4 million users, respectively during the period.

At the end of September 2024, Reliance Jio had 463.78 million wireless users while Airtel had 383.48 million subscribers and Vodafone Idea 212.45 million wireless users.

BSNL, on the other hand, added nearly 8.5 lakh (849,493) new subscribers taking its wireless connections to 91.89 million from 91,04 million in July. 

While BSNL failed to make full use of the loss of subscribers of private telcos, it is possible that more mobile phone users will shift to BSNL with the state-owned telco’s full migration to 4G and then to 5G.

Jio managed to add 1.73 million to its active users to 444.49 million, while Airtel’s active subscriber numbers declined by 1.31 million to 380.68 million and and Vodafone Idea registered loss of 3.11 million active users to 179.52 million during the three months.

BSNL reported a modest increase in active users to 54.77 million from 53.60 million between July and September 2024.

The number of wireless users in urban areas declined to 628.12 million in September against 633.21 million in August, while rural subscriber base declined to 525.60 million in September from 530.63 million in August.