Wireless Subscriber Base Increases By 1.7 Million In February

Posted by ICRA

The wireless subscriber base in the country increased to 1,183.7 million in February 2019, witnessing an addition of 1.7 million subscribers over the previous month; while the active wireless subscriber base remained steady at 1,023 million. Further, the wireless broadband subscriber base maintained strong growth momentum, witnessing a growth of 2% during the month of February 2019.

Says Harsh Jagnani, Sector Head & Vice President- Corporate Ratings, ICRA, “The growth in subscriber base in February was primarily driven by RJio, which added 7.8 million subscribers. State owned BSNL/MTNL was the only other telco gaining subscribers in the month, adding 0.9 million users. In terms of active subscribers as well, RJio was the biggest gainer, adding 9.3 million active subscribers in February, followed by BSNL/MTNL which added 1.1 million active subscribers. With this, RJio has now added 90 million active subscribers to its network in 11M FY2019, thereby taking its active subscriber base to 250 million and strengthening its position in the industry. The overall active subscriber base remained at 1,023 million in February, as increase in RJio’s and BSNL/MTNL’s active subscriber base has been at the expense of other industry participants, who lost 10.4 million active subscribers on a combined basis.”

With healthy addition to active subscriber base, RJio’s active subscriber market share has strengthened to 24.4% in February 2019 (23.5% in January 2019). Vodafone-Idea continues to lead the market with 36.9% market share (37.6% in January 2019), followed by Bharti at 32.1% (32.4% in January 2019).

The wireless broadband subscriber base continues to maintain its strong growth trajectory, increasing to 532.0 million in February 2019 or 45% of the total subscriber base, witnessing addition of 10.2 million during the month. RJio leads the wireless broadband market, with market share of 56%, followed by Bharti and Vodafone-Idea at 21% each. For RJio, 100% of its subscribers are broadband subscribers, while the same ratio for Vodafone-Idea stood at 27% and for Bharti stood at 32%. ―CT Bureau