India telecom users rise to 933 million in March

The country's total telecom base rose to 933 million as of 31 March, from 931.95 million as of February end, posting a monthly growth of 0.11 per cent  mainly as mobile operators continued adding subscribers during the month.

The share of urban subscribers has declined to 59.51 per cent from the previous month's 59.77 per cent, while that of rural users has increased to 40.49 per cent (40.23 per cent). The country's overall tele-density remained the same at 75.23 at the end of the reporting month, according to data compiled by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

The subscription in the urban areas fell to 555.36 million (556.99 million), whereas subscription in rural areas increased to 377.73 million (374.96 million). The monthly growth rate of urban and rural subscription was (-)0.31 per cent and 0.74 per cent, respectively. The overall urban tele-density has declined to 145.78 from 146.47, while the rural tele-density rose to 43.96 (43.67).

The total wireless user base rose to 904.51 million (from 903.36 million) in February, registering a monthly growth of 0.13 per cent. The share of urban subscribers declined to 58.90 per cent (from 59.16 per cent), while that of rural wireless subscribers has increased to 41.10 purr cent (40.84 per cent). The overall wireless tele-density in India has slightly increased to 72.94 at the end of March, 2014 from 72.92 of previous month, the telecom regulator said.

Mobile phone subscriptions in urban areas declined to 532.73 million (534.40 million), while they rose to 371.78 million (368.96 million) to 371.78 million. The urban wireless tele-density declined to 139.86 (140.53), whereas rural tele-density rose to 43.27 (42 97).

Among the service providers, private operators hold 89.16 per cent of the wireless subscriber market share where as BSNL and MTNL, the two PSU operators hold only 10.84 per cent market share.

Among the service providers, Idea Cellular added the maximum of 2.24 million users for the second month in a row, followed by Vodafone India (2.22 million) and Bharti Airtel (1.9 million).

Loopp Mobile loses subscribers
Mumbai's oldest operator Loop Mobile (erstwhile BPL Mobile), which has been acquired by Bharti Airtel, has lost 40,294 customers during the month. Reliance Communications (7 million), BSNL (185,491), Tata Teleservices (147,736) and MTNL (134,914) were the other losers.

Out of the total 904.51 million wireless subscribers, 790.87 million were active on the date of peak visitor location register (VLR) in March. The industry considers VLR numbers to be a more accurate measure of the subscriber data base.

The proportion of VLR subscribers is about 87.44 per cent of the total wireless subscriber base reported by the service providers, TRAI added.

Operator-wise, Idea Cellular leads the tally with 101.53 per cent followed by Reliance (99.36 per cent) and Bharti (95.86 per cent). Loop has the lowest proportion of VLR with 49.06 per cent. Circle-wise, West Bengal has the highest proportion of VLR subscribers with 93.88 per cent followed by Assam (92.98 per cent) and Madhya Pradesh (92.97 per cent). Tamil Nadu (including Chennai) has the lowest VLR proportion with 75.99 per cent.

Mobile number portability
About 117.01 million subscribers have submitted requests for porting their mobile number.

In Zone-I (northern & western India), the maximum number of requests for portability were received in Rajasthan (about 11.79 million), followed by Gujarat (about 10.03 million).

In  Zone-II (southern and eastern) the maximum number of requests were received from Karnataka (about 13.37 million) followed by Andhra Pradesh (about 10.79 million).

In March, 2.60 million users had submitted requests for MNP.

Wireline segment
The overall wireline subscriber base declined to 28.49 million (from 28.59 million) in March.

The net reduction in wireline subscriber base was 0.11 million at the decline rate of 0.37 per cent.

The share of urban subscribers has increased to 79.09 per cent (from 78.99 per cent), whereas share of rural subscribers has decreased to 20.91 per cent from 21.01 per cent.

The overall wireline tele-density has slightly decreased to 2.30 in March (from 2.31), with urban and rural tele-density being 5.91 and 0.69 respectively.

BSNL and MTNL, the two PSU operators hold 77.29 per cent of the wireline market share.