Shares of telecom operators such as Bharti Airtel, Reliance Industries, Vodafone Idea and MTNL were buzzing in early trade on Friday after the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) released its monthly subscriber data for December 2020 which showed the country’s telecom subscriber base dipped marginally to 1,173 million.

Share Market Live

NSE

“The number of telephone subscribers in India decreased from 1,175.27 million at the end of November 2020 to 1,173.83 million at the end of December 2020,” Trai's telecom subscribers report for December 2020 said.

The mobile subscriber base declined to 1,153.77 million in December, from 1,155.2 million in November.

The dip in the subscribers base was mainly due to Vodafone Idea losing over 5.69 million mobile customers. It was followed by BSNL, which lost over 2,52,501 subscribers, and MTNL lost 6,442 customers.

Bharti Airtel led the mobile segment with an addition of over 4 million new customers and Reliance Jio added 4,78,917 new customers.

Bharti Airtel also led the market in active subscriber base. The company reported 97.1 percent active subscribers in December. It was followed by Vodafone Idea with 90.26 percent and Reliance Jio with 80.23 percent.

Meanwhile, broadband subscriber base in the country grew marginally to 747.41 million in December with wireless segment recording 724.46 million connections.

Reliance Jio maintained its lead in the broadband segment with 410.84 million customers. It was followed by Bharti Airtel with 179 million broadband subscribers, Vodafone Idea 120.77 million, BSNL 26.32 million and Atria Convergence 1.78 million connections in December 2020, the report said.

At 9:55 am, the stock price of Bharti Airtel was trading 0.84 percent higher at Rs 593.95 apiece, Reliance Industries gained 1.03 percent to Rs 2,086.70, while Vodafone Idea declined 0.43 percent to Rs 11.53 and MTNL gained 0.16 percent to Rs 12.31 apiece on the BSE.

Catch all the latest updates from the stock market here.

(With agency inputs)

(Disclosure: Network18, the parent company of CNBCTV18.com, is controlled by Independent Media Trust, of which Reliance Industries is the sole beneficiary.)

First Published:Feb 19, 2021 10:16 AM IST