While mobile subscriber base growth has slowed to 0.86% in February, broadband subscriber base in the country registered a impressive growth rate of 3.05% during the month. Broadband subscriber base increased from 94.49 Million at the end of Jan-15 to 97.37 million at the end of Feb-15. Bharti Airtel continues to lead the market with 20.88 million broadband subscribers.
Wired Broadband
Out of the 97.37 million broadband users, only 15.45 million was on wired broadband. Wired broadband subscriber base increased from 15.39 million at end of Jan-15 to 15.45 million in February registering just 0.39% growth. BSNL leads the wired broadband market with 9.98 million users followed by Bharti Airtel with 1.43 million users. MTNL had 1.14 million users at the end of February 2015.
Wireless Broadband
Wireless Broadband leads the segment with 81.48 million subscribers. High growth in broadband base was on back of wireless broadband base registering growth of 3.59% during the month of February. Bharti Airtel leads the wireless broadband segment with 19.45 million subscribers followed by Vodafone (17.92 million), Idea Cellular (14.08 million), BSNL (10.69 million) and Reliance Communications Group (7.67 million).
3G/4G uptake pushing up broadband base
Wireless broadband base mainly constitute of 3G/4G and EVDO users.The high growth in wireless broadband show more and more users moving towards 3G/4G services. Operator's data revenue also been on steady increase on back 3G service. Recently concluded auction has pave way for entry of at least one more 3G operator in each circle. Along with this Reliance Jio will enter the market with its 4G service soon and broadband base in country will witness massive growth in the coming months.
