You Broadband replaces MTNL as fifth largest wired broadband player in July

Vodafone Idea-owned You Broadband has replaced MTNL as the fifth largest wired broadband player in the market, according to the latest Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) report.

As per the Telecom Subscription Data report, You Broadband has entered the top 5 list in July with 0.75 million or 750,000 subscribers. It is pertinent to note that Hathway Cable and Datacom had displaced You Broadband to become the fifth largest broadband player in September 2017.

With 0.74 million subscribers, MTNL was at the fifth position till June. The public sector has been losing customer every month. Another state-owned company BSNL continues to be the number wired broadband player in the market.

As on 31st July 2019, the top five wired broadband service providers were BSNL (9.05 million), Bharti Airtel (2.40 million), Atria Convergence Technologies (1.47 million), Hathway Cable & Datacom (0.85 million) and You Broadband (0.75 million).

The wired broadband market is growing at snail’s pace. In July, the total wired broadband subscribers grew by 0.56% to 18.52 million.

Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Jio has launched its fiber to the home (FTTH) broadband service JioFiber, which hopes to expand the market. JioFiber was rolled out across 1600 cities on 5th September.

JioFiber plan rentals start at Rs 699 and go up to Rs 8,499. Even the lowest tariff starts with 100 Mbps speed. It also offers speeds up to 1 Gbps on select plans.

As reported by TelevisionPost.com, You Broadband India’s net loss for the fiscal ended 31st March 2019 has widened to Rs 41.84 crore as against Rs 25.71 crore in the previous fiscal.

Profit before finance costs, depreciation, amortisation, exceptional items, and tax grew to Rs 25.8 crore compared to Rs 39.6 crore. Total income jumped to Rs 190.6 crore from Rs 185.1 crore. Operating expenditure stood at Rs 165 crore as against Rs 145.5 crore.

You Broadband became the subsidiary of the Company effective August 31, 2018. YBIL is engaged in providing high-speed broadband internet access through cable network, high bandwidth internet broadband services to enterprise segment, infrastructure support to licensed telecommunication service providers.

The company had slipped into the red with a net loss of Rs 25.7 crore during the fiscal ended 31st March 2018 as against a net profit of Rs 20.3 crore in the previous fiscal. The internet service provider’s (ISP) revenue for the fiscal had expanded to Rs 180.7 crore compared to Rs 170 crore in the trailing fiscal.

Meanwhile, the number of broadband subscribers increased to 604.12 million at the end of July with a monthly growth rate of 1.60% from 594.59 million at the end of June, as per the reports received from 324 operators in the month of July 2019.

Top five service providers constituted 98.95% market share of the total broadband subscribers at the end of Jul-19. These service providers were Reliance Jio Infocomm (339.79 million), Bharti Airtel (123.94 million), Vodafone Idea (110.92 million), BSNL (21.64 million) and Atria Convergence (1.47 million).