India's broadband subscribers rose to 945 million in January: Govt data

New Delhi, April 21 (IANS) The total number of broadband subscribers increased from 944.96 million at the end of December to 945.16 million at the end of January, with a monthly growth rate of 0.04 per cent, government data showed on Monday.

The broadband segment includes both wired and wireless users. The slight growth came mainly from mobile broadband users, whose number rose from 898.57 million to 899.04 million during the month.

The market share of top five broadband (wired + wireless) was 98.43 per cent as they continued to dominate the market.

Among the segment, Bharti Airtel had a 289.31 million subscriber base. Vodafone Idea secured the third spot with 126.41 million subscribers.

BSNL and Atria Convergence Technologies rounded out the top five with 35.77 million and 2.28 million subscribers, respectively.

In the wired broadband segment, Airtel had 8.55 million users. BSNL held 4.26 million subscribers, followed by Atria (2.28 million), and Kerala Vision Broadband (1.28 million).

These five players together held a 67.67 per cent market share in the fixed broadband space, the report said.

On the wireless front, mobile and fixed wireless broadband subscriptions showed varied trends. Mobile broadband subscriptions inched up from 898.57 million in December to 899.04 million in January -- a 0.05 per cent rise.

The fixed wireless broadband users stood at 4.98 million during the same period.

The telecom report also noted that 5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) subscribers, which were earlier counted under wireline, are now included in the wireless category.

This led to an increase in total wireless subscribers, which went up from 1,150.66 million in December to 1,157 million in January -- a 0.55 per cent growth.

Meanwhile, over 14.14 million users opted for Mobile Number Portability (MNP) in January, pushing the total number of MNP requests to 1,093.33 million since the facility was introduced.

Overall, the telecom sector remained steady with modest growth in broadband and wireless users, while urban areas continued to lead in terms of tele-density and market penetration, as per the report.

--IANS

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