Telecom underwriting turns positive after 5 months, Voda Idea continues to decline


Mumbai: As the country continues to unlock in phases, the telecom subscriber base showed positive growth in July after five months of continuous decline, according to data provided by the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of India (Trai). The number of telephone subscribers in India went from 1,160.52 million at the end of June to 1,164 million at the end of July, thus showing a monthly growth rate of 0.30%.

Total wireless subscribers (2G, 3G and 4G) increased by almost 4 million during the previous month to 1,144.18 million at the end of July, registering a monthly growth rate of 0.30%.

However, Vodafone Idea continued to report subscriber losses after losing 3.7 million subscribers during the month. Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio reported an addition of 3.2 million and 3.5 million subscribers, respectively, during the month. The wireless market share of Jio, Airtel and Vodafone Idea is 35%, 27.9% and 26.3%, respectively.

Vodafone Idea’s management had stated that its user base was affected by the inability to recharge during the blackout months in the June quarter, but also saw a drop in July.

All service areas showed growth except Mumbai, West Bengal, UP (W), Karnataka, Bihar and Haryana in their wireless subscribers during July. The Kolkata service area showed a maximum growth of 2.03% in its wireless subscriber base during the month followed by UP East. The Mumbai, West Bengal and UP West service areas reported peak subscriber losses.

Airtel continued to lead the active subscriber user base with 97% active subscribers compared to 89.3% for Vodafone Idea and 78% for Reliance Jio.

The cable broadband service user base has also improved rapidly during the pandemic from 19 million in February to 20.13 million in July.

Overall teledensity in India increased from 85.85% in June to 86.03% in July. Urban teledensity increased from 137.35% at the end of June to 137.47% at the end of July and rural teledensity also increased from 58.96% at the end of June to 59.14% at the end of July.

All circles reported positive subscriber growth in the wireless and wireline segments, in contrast to losses since March.

In the fixed telephony segment, monthly except the Category B circle, the circle of all categories showed a growth rate in its number of fixed telephony subscribers during the month of July 2020. Annually, only Circle C and Metro Circle showed growth in their number of subscribers. However, every year all wireless circles have seen a declining rate in their subscriber base.

Subscribe to Mint newsletters

* Please enter a valid email

* Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter.

.