Cable and TV broadband service provider, Hathway Cable and Datacom has finally surpassed the government led broadband service provider MTNL to take the fourth spot in the wired broadband rankings by subscribers. According to the data released by Trai for January 2019, Hathway has earned the fourth spot in the chart while MTNL has slipped to the fifth position. To recall, Hathway and MTNL were in a head to head competition as per the stats of December 2018. In December, both Hathway and MTNL had 0.78 million subscribers. However, in just one month, Hathway added 10,000 subscribers whereas MTNL lost 10,000 subscribers giving an upper hand to Hathway Cable and Datacom.
Hathway Cable and Datacom Registers 10,000 New Subscribers
As per the data obtained in January, by the end of the month, the top wired broadband service providers were BSNL with 9.17 million subscribers, Bharti Airtel with 2.30 million subscribers, Atria Convergence Technologies with 1.40 million subscribers, Hathway Cable & Datacom with 0.79 million subscribers and MTNL with 0.77 million. In December 2018, the rankings for wired broadband service did not look like this. BSNL did not go through any change in its subscriber count, whereas Airtel was at 2.27 million subscribers, Atria Convergence Technologies was at 1.39 million subscribers, and both MTNL and Hathway Cable and Datacom were at 0.78 million subscribers.
Speaking of the entire broadband market, wireless and wired, the constitution of the companies according to subscriber base looked vastly different. Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd stood at the top with 289.44 million subscribers, Bharti Airtel boasted of having 110.25 million subscribers, Vodafone Idea had 109.86 million subscribers, BSNL had 20.81 million subscribers and Tata Tele Group with 2.26 million subscribers.
Reliance Jio Infocomm Leads the Group in Overall Broadband Services
In the wireless broadband segment, the top service providers were Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd with 289.44 million subscribers, Vodafone Idea with 109.84 million customers, Bharti Airtel with 107.96 million subscribers, BSNL with 11.64 million subscribers and Tata Teleservices with 1.79 million customers. It is worth noting that companies like Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd and Vodafone Idea have their most share in wireless broadband segment only. Whereas, that is not the case with BSNL and Airtel, as they boast of a significant number of wired broadband customers as well. However, with the launch of Reliance Jio GigaFiber in a few weeks, the figures may change again very fast.
Launch of Jio GigaFiber Likely to Bring Massive Change in Industry
The change in the subscriber base of Hathway Cable and Datacom hints that the industry is going in for rapid volatility in a short period and the subscribers are switching their service providers without hesitation. In the coming few months, we might also see the launch of Reliance Jio GigaFiber which will be Mukesh Ambani led telco’s FTTH service. Also, we can already see the other players in the broadband segment like ACT Fibernet, Airtel and Hathway ramping up their operations to prepare for another likely blow by Reliance Jio, this time in the broadband playing field.
