BSNL targets 20% market share by year end

BSNL targets 20% market share by year end

State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL), which has been losing subscribers continuously, is targeting a 20% mobile subscriber market share in the country by year end, the company’s chairman and managing director (CMD) PK Purwar told FE in an interaction on Monday.

The company is looking to achieve the same by ramping its 4G rollout using indigenous stack during the year, focusing on improving the quality of services with 100% network uptime, as well as through marketing initiatives to increase subscribers count.

Purwar’s comments assume significance in the sense that BSNL has an 8.08% mobile subscriber market share as on October 31, 2023, according to data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai). In 22 consecutive months as of October end, BSNL lost 21.4 million subscribers, taking its subscribers count to 92.87 million.

In comparison, Jio and Airtel have market share of 39.3% and 32.85%, respectively. Vodafone Idea has a market share of 19.6% in the mobile subscribers, according to Trai data.

Talking about the progress on 4G rollouts, Purwar said, “2024 will be a crucial year for us to expand our 4G services on 100,000 BTS (base transceiver stations). We have installed nearly 2,000 BTS in Punjab and Haryana. Uttar Pradesh (East), Uttar Pradesh (West), Uttarakhand, and Himachal are also seeing new equipments getting installed”.

“Starting 2025, we will also launch our 5G services as the 4G network we are installing is upgradable,” Purwar added.

Speaking at an event by BSNL on Monday, communications and IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said, “by June and July this year, BSNL 4G services will be expanded to 50,000 towers and that will improve the company’s image significantly”.

The minister said, there has been a strong confidence in the installed indigenous 4G equipments by BSNL and by Diwali this year, the company will significantly rollout its 4G services.

Lately, BSNL has also been focusing on replacing its older equipments in various circles including Delhi and Mumbai, which are being served by MTNL, to improve the bandwidth and network quality.

“There were many problems earlier related to having older equipments, not having a competitive product for 4G, fiber-to-the-home (FTTH), and challenges in maintenance of power plants, batteries, fiber cables, etc. Now, those challenges are being resolved quickly and we have a competitive product in the market,” Purwar said.

While Purwar did not share details about the merger plan of BSNL and MTNL, he said, “all the decisions today are being taken keeping in view both the companies. We think of them as single network with two companies. If BSNL needs to be successful, then it is important to improve services in Delhi and Mumbai, which are being run by MTNL. The focus is to improve the network and increase the network uptime to 99% or 100%”.

In the July-September quarter, BSNL’s net loss rose to Rs 1,482 crore, from Rs 1,470 crore in the April-June quarter, standalone financial statements of the company showed. The company’s revenue from operations fell 5.1% quarter-on-quarter (q-o-q) to Rs 4,071 crore during the quarter.

BSNL last reported net profit in FY09 and has reported a net loss of nearly Rs 1.1 trillion in the last 14 years since. In FY23, BSNL’s net loss widened to Rs 8,162 crore from Rs 6,982 crore in FY22. This, despite a 14% revenue growth to Rs 19,130 crore in FY23.

The government expects the company to turn net profitable by 2026-27.