Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel, two of the top private telecom operators in the market, have benefitted from Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited’s (BSNL) loss. The state-run telecom operator is seen as the king of wired broadband subscribers in India. But things are changing fast now. Jio and Airtel are both rapidly expanding their fiber infrastructure to reach more and more parts of the country. With their excellent and growing reputation in the market, both Airtel and Jio are aggressively adding new wired broadband subscribers in India.
Jio, Airtel Gain from BSNL’s Loss of 330k Subscribers
According to a report from Motilal Oswal, both Jio and Airtel gained 220k and 130k wired broadband subscribers in October 2021. They took this share from BSNL’s decline of 330k wired broadband subscribers. The overall industry wired broadband subscribers remained flat, growing at a mere 0.16 million to 24.6 million. However, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) data, BSNL still holds the largest market share when it comes to wireline subscribers. For the month ending March 31, 2021, BSNL had 33.13% of the wireline subscriber market share, followed by Airtel at the second with 23.09% market share, Jio at the third with 20.89% market share, and MTNL at the fourth with 11.94% market share. Combined, the two public sector units (PSUs) - BSNL and MTNL had 45.07% of the wireline subscriber market share, which is way more than what the private operators have. More and more users are expected to take up wired broadband services in the coming months as fiber connectivity reaches more areas. This should shake up the stats a little more towards the private operators as BSNL doesn’t have enough money to focus on expanding its wired broadband services at the moment. The state-run telco is focusing on rolling out PAN-India 4G as fast as possible and working with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) for the same.
