Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular, the Indian telecom service providers have together added over one crore mobile subscribers in April 2018 according to the information provided by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI). On the other hand, Vodafone suffered a loss of over 6.64 lakh customers in the same time period.
A statement by the Cellular Association of India stated that the maximum number of additions were made by Idea Cellular fetching up its subscription number to 216.76 million, adding 5.55 million customers.
Rajan S Mathews, COAI Director General said,”The growth seen in mobile subscribers this month is encouraging, and the industry is working daily to ensure that connectivity reaches the farthest corners of the country.”
The director general also informed that there have been provisions for extending exemptions for the construction of telecom towers and provide increased rights of way permissions for telecom tower. This way the Draft National Digital Communications Policy 2018 aims to make telecom connectivity reach each and every person of the country no matter how far he is.
According to the data delivered by the industry body, the country’s private telecommunication operators including subscriber figures of Aircel, RJio, MTNL and Telenor have reached a total of 1.049 billion mobile subscribers as of March 2018.
“Bharti Airtel continues to hold the top position, with total mobile subscribers reaching 308.6 million, adding another 4.5 million subscribers during April 2018. Airtel is followed by Vodafone India Ltd, which ended at 222.03 million subscribers,” the statement said.
Although the number of subscriptions in case of Idea Cellular and Bharti Airtel saw an upraise, Vodafone suffered a loss of total 6.64 lakh subscribers in April across 12 out of 22 telecom circles in the country. The telecom operator lost the maximum number of subscribers in Madhya Pradesh (2.42 lakh) followed by Maharashtra, Punjab, Bihar, UP West and others.