Mobile Subscribers Stats Sept 2016: Jio Drives Highest Monthly Mobile Subscriber Additions in last 5 Years!
This was expected – Jio with their Welcome Offer and now subsequently with their Happy New Year Offer are now driving the mobile subscriber growth in India. They have set a record for new subscriber additions in month of September 2016 adding close to 16 million subscriber based on official monthly TRAI report. This is by far the highest additions by any telecom operator in a month.
One can expect October to witness even higher additions from Jio as they surpassed 50 million subscribers in first 83 days alone.
With Jio’s 16 million, the total new subscriber additions in month of September were 20.86 million, which is again the highest number of additions in a month. With this, the total subscriber base in India now stands at 1049.74 million!
Comparatively, only 18 million new subscribers were added from Jan 2016 to August 2016. Here is a chart that depicts how mobile subscribers have grown since Jan 2015.
Total additions since Jan 2016 stands at 38.86 million!
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Active Mobile Subscriber Base
Active subscriber base grew in equal measure, which means that majority of new Jio connections were active in September. While their VoLTE calls faced lots of connectivity issues, Jio customers used 4G data quite extensively, which ensured that most of their numbers were active.
Given that Jio is offering data and voice calls free till March 2017, majority of their subscribers will remain active.
Currently active mobile subscriber base stands at 949.17 million, which is 90.42 of total. Here is chart that depicts growth in last 2 years.
Mobile Subscriber Growth Highlights [September 2016]
– With a increase of 20.86 mln in Sept 2016, total mobile subscriber base has reached 1049.74 million. India had 1028.88 million subscribers by end of August 2016.
– Urban India witnessed a monthly growth rate of 3.06 percent or additions of 17.91 mln subscribers, while rural mobile subscriber base increased by 0.67 percent or 2.95 mln.
– Urban India has a total of 603.80 million, while rural India has a total of 445.94 million mobile subscribers.
– Rural India has added 10.92 mln subscribers since Jan 2016, while Urban India added 20.85 mln
– Reliance Jio set a record for monthly additions, adding 15.98 million subscribers in September 2016
– Urban Teledensity increased to 151.10 from 147.90 in May 2016, while the rural tele-density decreased to 50.80 from previous 51.19.
– Urban mobile subscriber share stands at 57.52% as compared 42.48% of rural subscribers.
– 5.00 million new Mobile portability requests were made in month of Sept 2016, taking the total tally of MNP requests since launch to 234.47 mln.
– Active Mobile Subscriber base increased from 930.57 million in Aug 2016 to 949.17 million in Sept 2016, taking the active percentage to 90.42 percent.
– Delhi remained the circle with highest teledensity of 226.94, while Bihar has the lowest at 55.52. The all-India teledensity currently stands at 84.09
– Total broadband (> 512 Kbps) subscribers increased from 171.71 Million at the end of Aug- 16 to 192.30 million at the end of Sep-16 with a monthly growth rate of 11.99%.
– Out of 192.30 million broadband users in India, 173.87.06 million access internet through mobile devices or dongles.
Operator Wise Subscriber Additions [Sept 2016]
When it came to new subscriber additions, Jio set an all time record, however, other telecom operators did not fare badly too. Bharti Airtel added 2.4 mln new subscribers followed by Idea (1.91 Mln) and BSNL (1.40 Mln).
BSNL has had one of the best years as they have been consistently in top 3 or top 4 operators in terms of new subscriber additions. In fact, in 2016 they have managed to add 11.25 mln subscribers, which is just below Bharti Airtel’s 16.65 million, if you do not take Jio into consideration.
Top 9 Mobile Operators in Numbers (Over 50 mln Subs)
| Sr. No | Telecom Operator | Total Subscriber Count ( till Sept 2016) | New Subscriber Additions since Jan 2016 ( in Mln) |
| 1 | Bharti Airtel | 259,940,666 | 16.649 |
| 2 | Vodafone | 200,721,247 | 7.118 |
| 3 | Idea Cellular | 178,816,338 | 6.902 |
| 4 | Reliance Communication | 87,159,985 | -13.733 |
| 5 | BSNL | 93765354 | 11.254 |
| 6 | Aircel | 90140979 | 4.502 |
| 7 | Tata | 57053780 | -3.672 |
| 8 | Telewings / Telenor | 52857799 | 2.107 |
| 9 | Reliance Jio | 15,979,745 | 15.979 |
[Trai Press Release]
