Hindi
Gunday continues its strong run at the box-office
MUMBAI: Last week saw two films of different genres release. Darr @ The Mall a direct lift of a Hollywood flick from 1989 and Highway, a road movie. While, Darr @ The Mall is a total reject, Highway, also not creating a fad, is a little better. In which case, last week’s solo release, Gunday has reaped the benefit.
Darr @ The Mall has fared poorly with its day to day collections barely touching a crore mark. The film collected Rs 3.2 crore for its opening weekend.
Highway, banking on Sajid Nadiadwala’s banner and director Imtiaz Ali’s past record, fared a shade better. The film collected Rs 12.7 crore over its opening weekend with the Sunday collections showing a decent growth. The film’s 75 per cent business came from Delhi-NCR-Punjab and Mumbai. But, that is not enough to slot the film as an earner with as much as Rs 30 crore incurred for the release of the film.
Gunday proves once again that films on male bonding, friendships don’t usually fail. With an excellent weekend of Rs 43.93 crore, the film ended its first week run with a healthy Rs 63.1 crore adding another Rs 8.15 crore for the second weekend taking its ten day total to Rs 71.24 crore. Both, Ranveer Singh and Arjun Kapoor have consolidated their positions in the industry.
Hasee Toh Phasee has had a decent second week, its average merits notwithstanding. The credit goes to Parineeti Chopra whose performance is being appreciated by all. The film has added Rs 7.7 crore in its second week, taking its two week total to Rs 33.05 crore.
Jai Ho has not managed to do much business at the end of it fourth week with collections of Rs 45 lakh and a four week total of Rs 105.35 crore. It has not lived up to its expectations as other Salman Khan blockbusters in recent history.
Note: An Rs 100 crore grosser is not necessarily a hit because the take home amount is less than 50 per cent of that amount with over half going towards the theatre’s share and a part of it to the distribution expenses.
Hindi
India’s telecom subscribers cross 1.32 billion in February 2026
Broadband base swells past 1.06 billion as Jio and Airtel tighten grip on the market.
MUMBAI: India’s telecom sector is ringing in steady growth once again adding millions of new connections every month while the race for broadband supremacy continues to heat up like a fiercely contested cricket match. According to the latest data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on 1 April 2026, the total telephone subscriber base in the country reached 1,321.31 million at the end of February 2026. This marked a net addition of 7.31 million subscribers during the month, translating into a monthly growth rate of 0.56 per cent.
Wireless subscribers (including mobile and Fixed Wireless Access) stood at 1,273.31 million, registering a net addition of 6.97 million and a growth rate of 0.55 per cent. Within this, urban wireless connections grew to 730.75 million (growth 0.70 per cent), while rural wireless subscribers reached 542.56 million (growth 0.35 per cent).
Wireline subscribers, though much smaller in scale, showed slightly faster growth. The total wireline base increased to 47.99 million, with a net addition of 0.34 million and a monthly growth rate of 0.70 per cent. Urban areas continued to dominate wireline connections with a share of 89.41 per cent.
Overall tele-density in India improved to 92.66 per cent. Urban tele-density stood at 150.68 per cent, while rural tele-density edged up to 60.02 per cent.
The broadband subscriber base crossed a significant milestone, reaching 1,059.05 million at the end of February 2026. This reflected a healthy net addition of 6.33 million subscribers and a monthly growth rate of 0.60 per cent from January’s figure of 1,052.72 million.
Segment-wise, mobile wireless access continued to drive the majority of growth with 996.52 million subscribers. Fixed Wireless Access (including 5G FWA) added 16.51 million, while wired broadband stood at 46.02 million.
Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. maintained its commanding lead with 519.64 million broadband subscribers. Bharti Airtel Ltd. followed with 364.14 million, Vodafone Idea Ltd. with 129.36 million, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. with 28.70 million, and Atria Convergence Technologies Ltd. with 2.38 million.
Together, these top five players command a massive 98.60 per cent share of the total broadband market.
In the wireless (mobile) segment, private operators continued to dominate with 92.59 per cent market share, leaving public sector undertakings (BSNL and MTNL) with just 7.41 per cent.
Out of the total 1,257.29 million wireless (mobile) subscribers, 1,177.60 million were active on the peak Visitor Location Register (VLR) date, representing an impressive 93.66 per cent activity rate. Bharti Airtel led in this metric with 99.42 per cent of its subscribers active.
Meanwhile, 14.47 million subscribers submitted requests for Mobile Number Portability (MNP) in February, indicating healthy competition and customer churn across zones.
While urban areas still lead in absolute numbers, rural connectivity is slowly catching up. Rural wireless tele-density stood at 59.46 per cent, compared with the much higher urban figure of 142.32 per cent.
Fixed Wireless Access using 5G technology also showed promising traction, growing to 11.93 million subscribers. Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel are the primary players driving this segment.
The data paints a picture of a maturing yet still rapidly expanding telecom ecosystem. With total telephone subscribers now well past the 1.32 billion mark and broadband users comfortably above 1.06 billion, India continues to solidify its position as one of the world’s largest and most dynamic digital markets.
From bustling city streets to remote villages, more Indians are staying connected than ever before proving that when it comes to telecom, the country’s appetite for growth shows no signs of hanging up anytime soon.
