India’s wireless subscriber base increased 2.29 percent to 1,183.41 million in March 2018 from 1,156.87 million in February 2018.
The TRAI statistics report indicated that the wireless subscriber base of Airtel reached more than 304 million in March 2018.
Airtel has 156.90 million subscribers, more than half of its total mobile customer base, in rural India.
Vodafone has 222.69 million wireless subscribers including 120.30 million in rural areas of India telecom market.
Idea Cellular has 211.20 million mobile subscribers including 114.74 million in rural telecom markets.
BSNL has 117.67 million wireless subscriptions including 35.82 million in rural areas of India.
Reliance Jio has 186.56 million wireless phone subscribers including 49.73 million in rural India.
The rural growth of Airtel, Idea Cellular and Vodafone is significant as compared with the rural presence of BSNL and Reliance Jio.
The wireless subscription in urban areas increased 1.87 percent to 662.18 million in March from 650.03 million in February.
Wireless subscriptions in rural areas increased 2.84 percent from 506.84 million to 521.23 million.
Airtel has 25.7 percent market share in the Indian wireless market against 18.82 percent for Vodafone, 17.85 percent for Idea Cellular, 15.76 percent for Reliance Jio and 9.44 percent for BSNL.
Reliance Jio tops the wireless market in terms of net addition of subscribers in March 2018. Idea Cellular, Airtel, Vodafone and BSNL are in the next positions.
Broadband market
TRAI said the number of broadband subscribers increased 5.24 percent from 392.06 million in February to 412.60 million in March.
Top broadband service providers are Reliance Jio Infocomm with 186.56 million, Bharti Airtel with 85.67 million, Vodafone with 59.77 million, Idea Cellular with 39.84 million and BSNL with 21.08 million.
Top wired broadband service providers are BSNL with 9.3 million, Airtel with 2.18 million, Atria Convergence Technologies with 1.31 million, MTNL with 0.87 million and Hathway Cable & Datacom with 0.78 million.
The top wireless broadband service providers are Reliance Jio Infocomm with 186.56 million, Bharti Airtel with 83.49 million, Vodafone with 59.76 million, Idea Cellular with 39.83 million and BSNL with 11.78 million.
TRAI said telecom operators have received 19.67 million requests for MNP during the month of March. The cumulative MNP requests increased from 351.16 million in February 2018 to 370.83 million in March 2018, since the implementation of MNP.
