Airtel to Catch Up With BSNL After Jio in Broadband

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), the market leader in the wireline segment, is continuously losing market share to private telecom operators. Much recently, data came to the surface that Jio had overtaken BSNL in the fixed-broadband business. It won’t be long before Airtel does the same.

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Both Jio and Airtel have a strong presence in the fiber broadband market with their fixed-line service brands – JioFiber and Airtel Xstream Fiber.

“BSNL is the market leader in the wireline segment, but it is continuously losing market share to Airtel and Jio. In Nov, Jio overtook BSNL as the country’s biggest fixed-line broadband provider. Airtel is also not far behind and would probably beat BSNL in the coming months,” Charu Paliwal, an analyst at Counterpoint Research, told TelecomTalk.

BSNL Not Being Able to Invest in Fiber Infra the Reason Behind Losing Market Share

BSNL doesn’t have the capacity of investing in fiber network and infrastructure the way its competitors do. Both Jio and Airtel aren’t just expanding in the urban cities but also the rural areas of the country. With their competitive pricing, better branding, marketing, and wider availability, Jio and Airtel are eating up the market share of BSNL.

“BSNL is in this situation because Jio and Airtel are rapidly expanding their fiber infrastructure and service offerings in various parts of the country, including rural areas. Their aggressive marketing plans and growing penetration is helping them to take away BSNL market share,” added Paliwal.

Vodafone Idea Losing Wireline Customers Too

Vodafone Idea (Vi) never really had a big broadband presence in India to start with. Whatever it has, the telco is losing that as well. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) report shared that Vi lost not only wireless customers but also wireline customers.