BSNL loses close to 10 lakh subscribers in Nov ’23: Trai data

State-owned telecom BSNL lost more than 9.67 lakh subscribers in single month of November 2023, according to latest figures released by Telephone Regulatory Authority of India. Apparently, poor connections forced customers to leave the state-owned telecom and join private peers like Jio and Airtel in the month under consideration.

Public telecoms like BSNL and MTNL continued to lose customers. As a result, market share of state-owned telecoms is currently less than 10 per cent in the wireless segment while in the wireline segment it is under 20 per cent.

Public telecoms’ loss is private telecoms’ gain!

On one hand, the overall market share of state-owned telecoms continued to shrink. On the other hand, private peers continued to gain more and more share of the pie. Private telecom’s market share in wireless segment is above 90 per cent while that in wired segment is above 70 per cent.

In November 2024, Airtel added 19.03 lakh new customers. While, telecom behemoth, Jio added highest number of 35.75 lakh new subscribers in the same month.

While, Vodafone Idea (VI) lost more than 10 lakh customers in single month of November. In wired segment, VI’s market share currently hovers around two per cent. While, in wireless segment, the Aditya Birla Group owned telecom’s market share is just under 20 per cent.

Currently, there are total number of 118.58 crore telecom subscribers in the country.