Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh added 21.5 lakh new wireless services subscribers or registered a growth rate of 2.86% over a month, the most in the country, with most choosing Reliance Jio, which clocked its highest growth rate in any circle, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).
The telephone service provider displaced Vodafone Idea between September 19 and October 19 to become the largest wireless service provider in the States, by adding 12,44,614 new customers, according to the data released on Monday. At the third spot is Bharti Airtel, which lost 54,471 users during the period.
“Jio’s performance in the States can be largely attributed to Jio phone sales, which picked up during the Diwali offer when the price was slashed by almost half to ₹700,” said an official of the firm, requesting anonymity.
Meanwhile, amid an enduring clampdown on Internet services in the Jammu & Kashmir service area, it showed negative growth of 0.39% in the wireless subscribers.
As for total telephone and wireless subscribers, rural areas recorded more than twice the growth rate in urban areas. The monthly growth rates of urban and rural telephone subscriptions were 0.55% and 1.14% respectively, while for wireless they were 0.57% and 1.15%.
Wireless subscriptions in urban areas increased from 659.18 million to 662.92 million in the period, while subscriptions in rural areas increased from 514.56 million to 520.48 million.
Moreover, by October-end, private access service providers held 89.8% market share of the wireless subscribers, whereas BSNL and MTNL, the two PSU access service providers, had a market share of only 10.2%.
As for tele-density, while nine States registered lower numbers than the all-India average of 91.17%, the Delhi service area had the maximum of 242.83%, while Bihar recorded the minimum of 60.1% by October-end.
Top five service providers constituted 98.98% market share of the total broadband subscribers at the end of Oct-19. These service providers were Reliance Jio Infocom Ltd (365.12 million), Bharti Airtel (132.86 million), Vodafone Idea (115.80 million), BSNL (22.27 million) and Atria Convergence (1.49 million).
