India’s total broadband subscribers touched 747.41 million in December 2020 showing a monthly growth rate of 0.72 per cent over November 2020, signifying that despite difficult times, country’s digital march continues.

According to figures from 375 operators released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the top five service providers constituted 98.84 pc market share of the total broadband subscribers in December 2020.

While Reliance Jio’s share stood at 410.84 million, Bharti Airtel had cornered 179 million subscribers, VodafoneIdea had 120.77 million, state-owned BSNL 26.32 million and Atria Convergence had 1.78 million subscribers.

Interestingly, BSNL, a telecom operator with more reach and infrastructure than any other private sector telco or broadband service provider, topped the wired broadband segment with 7.70 million customers.

In the wired segment, Bharti Airtel’s share was 2.81 million, Reliance Jio’s 2.07 million, Atria Convergence1.78 million and Hathway Cable & Datacom 1.05 million.

In the wireless broadband segment, however, Reliance Jio Infocom was way ahead of the nearest competition with a subscriber base of 408.77 million. The second spot was taken by Bharti Airtel with 176.19 million subscribers. VodafoneIdea’s share was 120.77 million, BSNL had 18.62 million subs and Tikona Infinet Ltd’s base was 0.31 million, according to TRAI report.

Telecom subscriber base in the country fell marginally to 1,173 million in December 2020 with Vodafone Idea and state-run telecom firms BSNL and MTNL losing the bulk of their customers to

Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio in December 2020.