Reliance Jio Becomes Only Telco to Witness Subscriber Growth in March 2019 With an Addition of 9.5 Million: ICRA

ICRA, the Indian Credit Rating agency has issued its report today on the subscriber count of India. The report is on the same lines as of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) which revealed that wireless subscriber base in the country has fallen to 1,162 million in March 2019, thus declining by 21.9 million subscribers over the previous month. The active wireless subscriber base, however, has remained almost the same at 1,022 million against the last figure of 1,023 million in February. On the other hand, the wireless broadband subscriber base has maintained a steady pace of growth, thus increasing by 2% in the month of March 2019.

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Efforts to Improve ARPU Led to Loss of Subscribers: ICRA

Mr Harsh Jagnani, Sector Head & Vice President- Corporate Ratings, ICRA commented about the new figures, “The decline in total subscriber base in March was largely on account of major telcos introducing minimum recharge plans over the last few months. This was done in a bid to wean out low revenue generating subscribers and thus improve ARPU levels as well as profitability, which have been under consistent pressure over the last couple of years. This decline in subscribers is not expected to materially impact the industry revenue potential.”

The interesting thing to note is that while all the other telcos continue to bleed subscribers, Reliance Jio was the only telco which added subscribers. The Mukesh Ambani led telecom operator added 9.5 million subscribers to its network, thus pushing its total subscriber base past the 300 million mark, further strengthening its position in the industry. Speaking of active subscribers also, Reliance Jio was the telco which gained the most as it added 8 million active subscribers. Next up were, BSNL and MTNL, which added 0.5 million subscribers.