Prepaid Tariff Hike Effect: BSNL Adds More Subscribers Than Jio in December 2019

Well, the inevitable has happened at last. State-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has added more subscribers than any other telecom operator in India in December 2019. After the prepaid tariff hike in December 2019, everyone expected that BSNL would lead the subscriber addition chart, which is true if the subscription data released by Trai is anything to go by. During the month of December, BSNL added 4.2 lakh new users which was followed by Reliance Jio which added just 82,308 new customers. For the first time since its inception, Reliance Jio has added less than five million users. This will put a lot of questions on Jio’s goal of reaching 500 million subscriber base in the next two quarters. As always, Vodafone Idea lost the most number of subscribers in the month, followed by Bharti Airtel and MTNL.

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BSNL Beats Reliance Jio for the First Time in Subscriber Additions

Reliance Jio emerged as the winner in almost every month since it launched services to the public back in September 2016. The company averaged more than five million users every month, but the latest prepaid tariff hike and the continuation of IUC have dented its monthly additions for the first time. The Mukesh Ambani-led telco added just 82,308 new users in December 2019 and it is still the leading telco with 32.14% market share.

Government-owned BSNL has managed to grab 427,089 users in the same month, beating Jio for the first time and securing a market share of 10.26%. At the start of December 2019, private telecom operators hiked prepaid tariff prices by up to 40%, but BSNL did not make any major changes to the tariffs except reducing validity in select circles.