Telcos add 37.4 lakh mobile users in August: Trai

Wireless subscribers in the country increased to 114.7 crore at the end of August, with addition of 37.44 lakh users, according to the latest data from telecom regulator Trai.

The overall telecom subscriber base (wireless and wireline) increased marginally to 116.7 crore in August from 116.4 crore in July, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) said on Tuesday.

The total wireless subscriber base grew from 114.4 crore at the end of July to 114.7 crore at the end of August, registering a monthly growth rate of 0.33 per cent.

Wireless subscription in urban areas rose to 62.4 crore at the end of August, while the same in rural areas decreased to 52.2 crore, it added.

Bharti Airtel added 28.99 lakh users, the highest among the players in August, to take its subscriber base to 32.28 crore. Reliance Jio saw its userbase touching 40.26 crore with the addition of 18.64 lakh users in August.

Vodafone Idea lost 12.28 lakh users to take its subscriber base to 30.01 crore at the end of August, the data showed.

State-owned MTNL also lost 6,081 mobile service customers, while BSNL added 2.14 lakh mobile customers.

"Out of the total wireless subscribers (1,147.92 million), 957.43 million were active on the date of peak VLR (visitor location register) in August 2020. The proportion of active wireless subscribers was about 83.41 per cent of the total wireless subscriber base," Trai said.

Active subscribers are calculated based on reported VLR, a key metric reflecting the number of active users on a mobile network.

Bharti Airtel had the maximum proportion (96.85 per cent) of its active wireless subscribers (VLR), compared with its total wireless subscribers (HLR) on the date of peak VLR in August, it said. HLR stands for home location register.

MTNL had the minimum proportion of VLR (18.39 per cent) of its HLR during the same period, Trai said.

Fixed-line connections increased marginally to 1.989 crore in August from 1.982 crore in July, it added.

The number of broadband subscribers increased to 71.61 crore in August, from 70.54 crore in the preceding month. The top-five service providers constituted 98.89 per cent market share of the total broadband subscriber base.

These include Reliance Jio Infocomm (40.39 crore), Bharti Airtel (15.89 crore), Vodafone Idea (11.99 crore), BSNL (2.37 crore) and Atria Convergence (about 17 lakh).