NEW DELHI: Mobile users helped give a spurt to broadband usage in the country to touch 104.96 million by the end of May, which signified a monthly growth rate of 4.17 per cent.

It may be recalled that in April this year the broadband users in the country crossed the 100 million mark for the first time.

Mobile devices users (phones and dongles) went up from 84.79 million to 88.96 million between April and May, signifying an increase of 4.91 per cent.

However, Fixed Wireless subscribers (Wi-Fi, Wi-Max, Point to Point Radio and VSAT) showed a minor decline of 0.17 per cent thus remaining at just over 440,000 users.

Wired subscribers went up from 15.52 million to 15.56 million, showing an increase of 0.23 per cent.

Based on reports received from the service providers, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said the top five service providers constituted 83.75 per cent market share of total broadband subscribers at the end of May.

These service providers were Bharti Airtel (23.39 million), Vodafone (21.27 million), BSNL (18.50 million), Idea Cellular Ltd (15.76 million) and Reliance Communications Group (8.99 million).

The regulator noted that some wireless service providers exclude incidental data users from their subscriber base, based on minimum usage decided by them.

As on 31 May, the top five Wired Broadband Service providers were BSNL (9.90 million), Bharti Airtel (1.45 million), MTNL (1.14 million), Atria Convergence Technologies (0.66 million) and YOU Broadband (0.45 million).

The top five Wireless Broadband Service providers were Bharti Airtel (21.93 million), Vodafone (21.27 million), Idea Cellular (15.76 million), Reliance Communications Group (8.88 million) and BSNL (8.59 million).