The Indian telecom industry added a net 2.8 million mobile subscribers in April 2017, taking the total customer base close to the one billion mark.
The total number of mobile phone subscribers at the end of April 2017 reached 934.6 million, according to a statement by industry body Cellular Operators Association of India. This is an increase of 21 percent from April 2016.
COAI's data for April includes Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd's subscriber numbers only till March 2017.
The Mukesh Ambani-promoted Reliance Jio offered free services for the first six months after its launch in September 2016, and then introduced tariff plans at lower rates than incumbent operators. This spurred a series of tariff cuts, and consolidation in the sector with incumbents combining forces to tackle Reliance Jio’s pricing.
The country's largest telecom operator Bharti Airtel Ltd saw a one percent growth in the number of subscribers from the previous month, taking its total subscriber base to 276.5 million in April. This was followed by Vodafone India and Idea Cellular Ltd, each of which saw a monthly subscription growth of 0.3 percent.
The gains seen by these operators were offset by Telenor India, which has been rapidly losing subscribers since an acquisition announcement by Bharti Airtel. In April, it lost 1.1 million subscribers, a decline of 2.3 percent over the previous month to 49.3 million customers. Aircel Ltd too lost 0.3 percent subscribers in April compared to March.
Reliance Jio had 108.6 million subscribers at the end of March 2017, according to data available with the telecom regulator.
(This article was originally published in BloombergQuint)
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