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, according to data released by sector regulator Trai yesterday.

Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio were the only gainers of new customers in December.

“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,” PTI quoted a TRAI statement on subscribers for December 2020.

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.