BSNL eyes 20% market share by year end

State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (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 PK Purwar said that the company is looking at 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. 

“The target (of 20% market share) is practically possible. It depends on the quality of our services and how fast we rollout 4G and 5G services,” Purwar said. “Our customers are looking forward to our 4G services and our product is getting upgraded. The trust of the people is with BSNL,” Purwar added. 

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

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. 

To improve the bandwidth and network quality, BSNL is working on replacing its older equipments in various circles including Delhi and Mumbai, which are being served by MTNL. 

“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.