Wireless broadband subscriber base touches 532 mn in Feb: ICRA

Wireless broadband subscriber base surged to 532 million in February 2019, onboarding 10.2 million users during the month, with Reliance Jio cornering nearly 56 per cent of the overall wireless broadband market, ICRA said.

"The wireless broadband subscriber base continues to maintain its strong growth trajectory, increasing to 532 million in February 2019, or 45 per cent of the total subscriber base, witnessing addition of 10.2 million during the month. R Jio leads the wireless broadband market, with market share of 56 per cent, followed by Bharti and Vodafone-Idea at 21 per cent each," ICRA said in its latest report.

ICRA noted that 100 per cent of Reliance Jio's subscribers are broadband subscribers, while the same ratio for Vodafone-Idea stood at 27 per cent and for Bharti at 32 per cent.

The wireless subscriber base in India increased to 1,183.7 million in February 2019, adding 1.7 million subscribers over the previous month, the report said.

The active wireless subscriber base remained steady at 1,023 million. It added to the wireless broadband subscriber base maintained strong momentum, demonstrating a growth of two per cent during the month of February.

"The growth in subscriber base in February was primarily driven by RJio, which added 7.8 million subscribers. State-owned BSNL or MTNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd/Mahanagar Telephone nigam Ltd) was the only other telco gaining subscribers in the month, adding 0.9 million users," Harsh Jagnani, sector head and vice president - Corporate Ratings, ICRA said.

"The overall active subscriber base remained at 1,023 million in February, as increase in RJio's and BSNL or MTNL's active subscriber base has been at the expense of other industry participants, who lost 10.4 million active subscribers on a combined basis," he added.