Wireless subscriber base declines to 1,033 mn in May: Trai

Wireless subscription in rural areas increased from 447.84 mn to 448.90 mn in May

The wireless subscribers in the country declined to 1,033.16 million at the end of May from 1,034.25 million in the preceding month, mainly on account of Videocon losing over 5 million customers as the company has closed its operations.

Videocon has already sold its spectrum in six telecom circles to Airtel, in a Rs 4,428-crore deal, and its users are shifting to others.

Apart from Videocon, Reliance also lost one million subscribers whereas Tata lost 0.19 million.

Bharti Airtel, though, added 2.11 million users, followed by Vodafone which added 0.68 million, Idea too added 0.85 million, Aircel added 0.60 million, state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited added 0.75 million and Telenor added 0.62 million.

The wireless subscription in urban areas declined from 586.41 million at the end of April to 584.25 million in May whereas wireless subscription in rural areas increased from 447.84 million to 448.90 million during the same period. The total telephone subscriber base in the country also declined to 1,058.03 million at the end of May from 1,059.29 million in April as wireline subscribers also kept the declining trend.

The wireline subscriber base has been reduced to 24.87 million at the end of May from 25.04 million in April.