By Telecom Lead Team:Idea Cellular adds 2.38
million GSM mobile subscribers in December 2011. The third largest GSM player
in India has a market share of 16.63 percent.
The largest mobile service provider Bharti Airtel added
960,143 wireless subscribers in December 2011 and its market share is 27.46
percent.
Vodafone, which won
a $2.2 billion case against the Indian income tax department, added 905,478
mobile customers last month. Its market share stands at 23.10 percent.
All 11 GSM players added
7.55
million mobile users in December 2011. At the end of 2011, GSM has 639.6
million customers.
Idea Cellular attracted 2.38 million customers in one
months due to its aggressive 3G expansion. It recently introduced
IDEA
branded smartphones to increase the number of 3G subscribers.
The Idea branded Smartphones are on Android operating
system. The aim is to bring down the prices of smartphone in the country and
make it affordable for the customers to accelerate the process from replacing
their 2G handsets with the 3G handsets.
Idea Cellular has more than 9,700 3G sites. The mobile operator has offered 3G
services to more than 2.5 million of its existing users to experience a high
speed broadband service. But Idea Cellular got response from over 750,000 of
these customers in September.
Idea Cellular reported
26
percent increase in consolidated income during Q2 FY 2012 at INR 46,199 million
as compared with INR 36,592 million in Q2 FY 2011.
The
growth in revenue is primarily driven by the company’s new milestone of 100
million customers. However, the increasing proportion of rural subscribers has
prompted the company to report 2.2 percent sequential revenue growth after high
growth of 6.7 percent and 7.0 percent in the previous two quarters.
The
company’s move to new services areas affected its profitability. Net profit
decreased to INR 1,058 million in Q2 FY 2012 from INR 1,797 million, showing a
decline of 41 percent. In the first half of the current, its net profit
declined to INR 2,830 million from INR 3,811 million in H1 FY 2011.
