BSNL lost 12.6 lakh subscribers in its bread and butter landline business this June, and taking the 15 lakh subscribers it lost in May, the total loss in twomonths alone comes to almost 28 lakh

New Delhi: BSNL lost 12.6 lakh subscribers in its bread and butter landline business this June, and taking the 15 lakh subscribers it lost in May, the total loss in twomonths alone comes to almost 28 lakh.

In May, BSNL was the only telco to lose landline subscribers but in June, Bharti and MTNL also together lost about 6,000 subscribers. 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 a little less than 80% 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 June, after a dismal May performance.

As per data released by telecom regulator TRAI, the two PSU telcos have just under 12% share of the mobile telephony market. But here too, BSNL and MTNL together lost almost four lakh subscribers in June after a loss of more than 10 lakh subscribers in May alone.

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 even after the Government provides it with equity infusion.

Continued loss of subscribers in landline as well as mobile telephony business should be seen in this context.

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.

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% against 12.7% in the previous fiscal. The data for May and June does not support these claims.

TRAI data showed some other interesting trends too. 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 June it touched 90.309 crore. And in the mobile subscriber pecking order, Bharti, Vodafone and Idea together continue to account for more than half the market, at just about 54% 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. But in June, Sistema Shyam Teleservices, Loop Mobile and Tata all lost some subscribers.

Another factor worth noting is the piling up of mobile number portability requests. In May alone, 1.83 million new requests by subscribers were received where they wanted their service provider changed while retaining the mobile number. And in June, another 2.03 million subscribers asked for a change in service providers while keeping mobile numbers same. By the end of June, in all about 95.59 million subscribers have submitted their requests to different service providers for porting their mobile number.