India's mobile subscriber base crosses 1 billion mark

Due to the rapid growth of smartphones in the market, fixed line connections declined steadily down to 22.81 million connections. Though state-run firm BSNL dominated the market with highest share of 12.26 million customers, it lost 5,304 customers. RCom lost 169,052 fixed line connections and MTNL 10,157 connections. Airtel topped the chart in terms of market share with 304.19 million subscribers, followed by Vodafone 222.69 million and Idea with 211.2 million customers.

Indian telecom industry in a stage of consolidation. Vodafone led new subscriber addition by adding 12,280 fixed line connections, taking its total subscriber base to 220,981. With this the number of broadband subscribers increased to 412.6 million in March from from 392.06 million in February. The mobile segment accounted for over 95 per cent of the total broadband connections.

According to the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), the total mobile subscriber base in India has hit a record 1.049 billion for the month ending in April 2018  and  breached  the 1.2 billion mark after telecom operators managed to add more than 26 million users within a single month as per Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).  March was a competitive month for the mobile industry since Airtel and Idea managed to close the gap on their market rival Reliance Jio. It could possible with the addition of 4.50 million subscribers during the month, Bharati Airtel continues to hold the top position.

The report further revealed, India saw an increase in telephone users from 1,179.83 million in February end to 1,206.22 million by the end of March 2018, amounting to a monthly growth of 2.24 percent. Within the same period, Reliance Jio retained as much as 9.42 million new subscribers, adding to a total of 186.56 million users.