At a time when the nation is swept by Jio mania, and the subsequent battle among telecom operators, state-run BSNL has been quietly fighting their own battle, and to increase their user base.
And if based on March reports, it is clear that BSNL has clearly staged a coup here.
As per reports coming in, BSNL has successfully activated 2.95 million new pre-paid connections in the month of March 2017, which is quite a feat in itself.
Especially because April was the month Jio started offering their paid Prime subscriptions. This clearly means that BSNL has attracted a niche user base of their own, based on attractive plans and offerings, which were mainly launched to counter the onslaught of Jio, Airtel and other private telcos.
BSNL’s New User-base Expands Pan-India
BSNL leadership had assigned a target of 2.7 million new activations for the month of March. This means that they have actually surpassed their own target.
BSNL’s new STV 339 plan has been attributed to their stunning performance, something which telecom analysts failed to predict. Under this plan, users are getting 2 GB data per day along with 25 minutes of off-net calling per day, and unlimited VoIP based calling whole day. We had already reported that this plan was a super hit, as 400 TB of data has been consumed in one day, which was another record.
This inspiring performance by BSNL has been witnessed pan-India, as out of 22 telecom circles, they achieved their target in 18 telecom circles, which are: Andaman & Nicobar, Assam, Jharkhand, Kolkata, West Bengal, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, UP (West), UP (East), Uttaranchal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
The four telecom circles where they were not able to achieve target are Bihar, North East – II, Jammu & Kashmir, Andhra Pradesh & Chennai TD.
In Himachal Pradesh, BSNL has triggered a growth of 200%, which is phenomenal, to say the least. Against a goal of 46,345, BSNL successfully activated 95,541 new activations, within a month.
In Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat, BSNL attracted 2 lakh new connections, while in Orissa, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, UP (West), Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra & Madhya Pradesh, 1 lakh new connections were activated.
Besides Himachal Pradesh, Assam, West Bengal, and Gujarat also witnessed the growth of 200% in new pre-paid connections.
It seems Jio and other private telcos need to understand this incredible success story of BSNL, in order to understand the psyche of Indian telecom users.
Without network / signal, what is the use of competing with Jio?