According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the market share of BSNL has increased to 8.35% in March 2016. The telecom operator has topped the list of all telecom service providers in the country including the private operators such as Airtel, Vodafone and Idea to gain a growth of 1.79% in March 2016. This is 2.5 times higher than the industry growth rate of 0.68%.
In March 2016, BSNL added more than 15.19 lakhs of new mobile customers. BSNL attributes the success to the launch of free All India Roaming Scheme. Commenting on the achievement, Director (CM) BSNL Board, Shri R.K.Mittal said, "We are thankful to our customers for reposing faith in us. We are committed to provide the best services to our customers."
Among BSNL circles, UP East circle added 2,12,373 wireless subscribers, followed by Bihar with 1,90,206 subscribers, Rajasthan with 1,48,844 subscribers, Kerala with 1,33,859, and Maharashtra with 1,29,682. Karnataka showed a decline of 17,205 subscribers in March 2016.
The TRAi report further stated that the total number of broadband subscribers in India, increased from 144.87 million at the end of February 2016 to 149.75 million at the end of March 2016 with monthly growth rate of 3.37%.
In case of Mobile Number Portability (MNP), in the month of March 2016, a total of 4.40 million subscribers submitted their requests for MNP. With this, the MNP requests increased from 204.73 million at the end of February 2016 to 209.13 million at the end of March 2016.
BSNL still holds the No.1 position in landline segment with 58.52% market share. Among the private players, Airtel holds the No.1 position in Broadband segment (Wired + Wireless) position with 25.69% market share and Vodafone at second position with 18.54% market share as on 31st March 2016.
The total number of telephone subscribers in India increased from 1051.88 million at the end of February 2016 to 1058.86 million at the end of March 2016, thereby showing a monthly growth rate of 0.66%.
Total wireless subscriber base increased from 1026.66 million at the end of February 2016 to 1033.63 million at the end of March 2016, thereby registering a monthly growth rate of 0.68%.
As on 31st March 2016, the private service providers hold 91.30% market share of the wireless subscribers, whereas the state-run operators BSNL and MTNL hold 8.70% market share.
Top Five service providers constituted 83.52% market share of total broadband subscribers at the end of March 2016. These service providers were Bharti Airtel (38.47 million), Vodafone (27.76 million), Idea Cellular Ltd (22.92 million), BSNL (20.35 million) and Reliance Communications Group (15.57 million).
In Wired Broadband segment, BSNL holds the No.1 position with 9.94 million customers, followed by Bharati Airtel with 1.74 million customers.
