The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, is making headlines in India as SpaceX partners with two telecom giants, Mukesh Ambani’s Jio and Sunil Bharti Mittal’s Airtel, to bring Starlink’s high-speed satellite Internet services to the country.
In response to the agreement, A. Robert J. Ravi, chairman and managing director of the state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), commented that the deal poses no threat to the company’s cable TV network and other schemes. But given that BSNL has yet to roll out 4G and 5G networks for its customers, his remarks have become fodder for jokes and memes on social media.
These reactions highlight a deeper issue for BSNL. Founded in 2000, BSNL was a dominant player with a 33 per cent share of the mobile subscribers market by 2003. But BSNL’s market share plummeted to around 10 per cent by 2021, according to a LinkedIn post. And the decline continued.
In 2024 alone, BSNL lost 18 million customers, bringing its subscriber base down to 88.06 million, as per a report in the New Indian Express.