BSNL lost almost 15 lakh landline subscribers in May

BSNL lost almost 15 lakh subscribers in its bread and butter landline business this May, earning the dubious distinction of being the only landline service provider to lose any subscribers at all. BSNL’s landline or wireline business decline is a matter of concern since it has, along with MTNL, already allowed complete monopoly to private telcos in the mobile services business - only in the landline segment do the two PSU companies have close 80 percent market share. But now, here too their market share is obviously dwindling if BSNL loses subscribers.

In the mobile telephony business too, the two PSUs fared rather poorly this May. As per data released by telecom regulator TRAI, the two PSU telcos have just under 12 percent share of the mobile telephony market. But here too, BSNL managed to lose over 9 lakh subscribers in May alone. MTNL lost close to a lakh subscribers.

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BSNL is seeking a bailout package from the Government to the tune of Rs 15,000 crore and has drawn up a roadmap which will see it breaking even only four years later. This is after the Government provides it with equity infusion. So continued loss of subscribers in landline as well as mobile telephony business should be seen in this context. Anyway, all the proposed expansion and incremental market share gains will happen only if the company is able to invest Rs 40,000 crore over the next five years in capex.

[caption id=“attachment_1038943” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] BSNL logo is seen in this file photo.[/caption]

In its presentation made to the Department of Telecom recently, BSNL claimed that it has finally been able to arrest a decline in overall market share last fiscal at 13.55 percent against 12.7 percentin the previous fiscal. The data for May does not support these claims.

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The TRAI data showed some other interesting trends too. First, though more and more people are now using a mobile phone, the number of urban subscribers has fallen in May while that of rural ones has risen. The total number of people using a phone - either landline or a mobile -grew to cross the 90 crore mark in May for the first time against 89.70 crore in April. And in the mobile subscriber pecking order, Bharti, Vodafone and Idea together account for more than half the market, at over 54 percent share. During May, Tata Teleservices (along with Loop Mobile) was the only private telco which lost subscribers in the mobile telephony business apart from PSU telcos.

Another factor worth noting is the piling up of mobile number portability requests. In May alone, 1.83 million new reqeusts by subscribers were received where they wanted their service provider changed while retaining the mobile number. Overall, portability requests increased from 91.73 million subscribers at the end of April to 93.56 million at the end of May. In Rajasthan alone, 9.04 million mobile phone users want their service provider changed, followed by Gujarat (7.98 million). In Karnataka this number was 11.03 million.