Though the trend is likely caused mostly by short-term developments, fixed network, mobile and voice accounts declined in India from July 2016 to August 2016, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. Many speculate that the currency retirement program now underway in India, retiring Rs 500 and Rs1000 notes, has many consumers focused on trading in their old currency, rather than buying new mobile phones and service, at least for the moment.
That could change over the next several reporting periods, however, as Reliance Jio entered the mobile market in early September 2016, gaining 50 million new accounts. So the issue is what percentage of those net new accounts were taken from other suppliers (which would not affect overall net subscriber growth) and what percentage represents net new mobile accounts (people buying mobile service and not switching from another provider).
Internet access accounts (broadband) grew from 166.96 Million at the end of July to 171.71 million at the end of August, a monthly growth rate of 2.84 percent.
Total mobile accounts in service declined from 1,034.23 million at the end of July to 1,028.88 million at the end of August, a monthly decline rate of 0.52 percent.
The fixed network subscriber base declined from 24.62 million at the end of July to 24.51 million at the end of August, a net decline of 0.44 percent.
