Reliance Jio, BSNL only telcos to add subscribers in October

New Delhi, Jan 2 (IANS) Telecom major Reliance Jio led the subscription race in October with an addition of around 1.05 crore subscribers, followed by BSNL, as all the other major players registered a decline in their subscriber base.

The subscriber base of the Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio increased to around 26.27 crore, from 25.22 crore subscribers reported in September, data released by the Telecom Regulators' Authority of India (TRAI) on Wednesday showed.

Total wireless subscribers, including GSM, CDMA and LTE, increased by 0.6 per cent from 116.92 crore in September 2018 to 117 crore at the end of October, the statement from TRAI said.

"The wireless subscription in urban areas increased from 647.70 million (64.77 crore) at the end of September 2018 to 648.24 million (64.82 crore) at the end of October 2018, and in rural areas also it increased from 521.59 million (52.15 crore) to 521.77 million (52.17 crore) during the month," it said.

The state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) was the only telecom service provider after Jio to witness an addition in its subsriber base during the month. It added around 3.64 lakh subscribers to take its total subscription base to 11.34 crore.

The country's largest operator in terms of subscribers and revenue, Vodafone Idea lost 73.61 lakh subscriptions, to bring its total base down to 42.76 crore subscribers, the data showed.

Bharti Airtel's total subscriber base stood at 34.16 crore at the end of October, as around 18.64 lakh Airtel subscriptions were lost during the month.