BSNL, an Indian telecom operator, has improved its revenue growth in the September quarter of 2016 after posting declines in previous quarter.
The revenue growth in access business assumes significance because leading telecom operators such as Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, Idea Cellular, Tata Teleservices, Reliance Communications and Telenor posted drop in access revenue in September quarter primarily due to the launch of Jio 4G services in India.
BSNL had 107.66 million subscribers as on September 2016 against 103.74 million in June quarter of 2016, registering a quarterly growth of 3.77 percent and annual growth of 12.92 percent, according to data available from TRAI.
Reliance Jio recorded the highest net addition of 15.98 million subscribers followed by Bharti Airtel with 4.27 million and BSNL with 3.77 million.
BSNL has 34.69 million wireless and wireline subscribers in rural areas of India. BSNL’s wireless customers in rural areas are 30.88 million.
The state-owned BSNL has increased its market share in wireless market to 8.93 percent from 8.65 percent.
Reliance Jio added 15.98 million wireless customers, while BSNL added 4.22 million.
BSNL enjoys 9.44 percent share in the Indian Internet market with a subscriber base of around 34693290.
In wired internet segment, BSNL holds 61.50 percent market share with 13.07 million subscribers, followed by Bharti Airtel with 2.02 million subscribers. Total number of wired internet subscriber is 21.26 million, says TRAI.
Top five broadband – wired and wireless — service providers are Bharti Airtel with 46.19 million, Vodafone with 35.94 million, Idea Cellular with 30.72 million, BSNL with 21.60 million, and Reliance Communications with 16.74 million subscribers.
In wired broadband segment, BSNL holds 55.39 percent market share with 9.88 million subscribers followed by Bharti Airtel with 1.94 million subscribers.
BSNL has posted Rs 3,283.57 crore revenue in September quarter against Rs 3,131.89 crore in June quarter, recording a quarterly growth of 4.84 percent.
The quarterly revenue of BSNL during the June quarter was Rs 3,131.89 crore, showing a decline of 11.73 percent from Rs 3,548.02 crore in March quarter.
BSNL is not the main target for Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio. Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular have already started showing revenue pressure. The year 2017 will be difficult for all operators including BSNL if Jio continues to extend free services.
Baburajan K
editor@telecomlead.com
