TIL Desk/Business/New Delhi/ Telecom subscribers in the country grew marginally to 119.7 crore in December with only two operators, Reliance Jio and state-run BSNL, reporting addition in their user base, according to a Trai report. Reliance Jio added 85.64 lakh users and BSNL 5.56 lakh customers to their network taking their subscriber base to 28 crore and 11.4 crore respectively in December.
An increase in number of subscribers for BSNL has come at a time when the government has asked the PSU to explore options, including shutting down operations, due to heavy losses.
“The number of telephone subscribers in India increased from 1,193.72 million at the end of November 2018 to 1,197.87 million at the end of December 18, thereby showing a monthly growth rate of 0.35 per cent,” the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said in its subscriber report for the month of December.
Mobile subscriber base reached 117.6 crore in the month. Vodafone Idea lost the highest number of 23.3 lakh mobile subscribers but still continued to be the biggest telecom operator with total subscriber base of 42 crore. Bharti Airtel reported a loss of 15 lakh subscribers taking its customer base to 34 crore.
