Telecom Lead India: Uninor, a Telenor subsidiary, has
added 2.49 million users in January, taking its total subscriber base to 38.79
million. Telenor recently threatened to exit from Indian mobile market due to
2G spectrum issues. February will be crucial for the operator as uncertain
conditions may have prompted telecom subscribers to switch.
The Aditya Birla Group promoted Idea Cellular is in
second position in net additions by adding 1.74 million new users to take its
subscriber base to 108.12 million.
According to TRAI, telecom operators have added 9.88
million mobile subscribers in January at 1.11 percent monthly growth, taking
the total number of wireless users in India to 903.73 million.
The total telecom subscriber base (wireless+wireline) of
the country stood at 936.12 million at the end of January, taking the overall
tele-density to 77.5 percent.
The wireline segment of the industry has seen a decline
of 0.90 percent in January, with wireline subscribers stood at 32.39 million.
Bharti Airtel added 1.3 million subscribers and its
base was 176.95 million, while its competitor Vodafone added 0.85 million
subscribers to take its subscriber base 148.60 million.
Reliance Communications added 0.94 million new customers to take their
subscriber base to 151.02 million. Aircel, Tata
Teleservices and Sistema Shyam (MTS) added 0.81 million, 0.22
million and 0.14 million new subscribers, respectively.
State-owned telcos BSNL and MTNL added 0.87 million and 57,564 new users in
January. Their subscriber base stood at 97.63 million and 5.73 million,
respectively.
In January, the share of urban subscriber has decreased from 65.59 percent to
65.41 percent where as share of rural subscribers has marginally increased from
34.41 percent to 34.59 percent.
Wireless subscription in urban areas increased from
586.26 million in December 2011 to 591.10 million at the end of January 2012.
The subscription in rural areas increased from 307.59 million to 312.62 million
during the same period. This shows higher growth in rural subscription (1.64
percent) than urban subscription (0.83 percent).
The number of active mobile subscribers, according to the
visitor location register (VLR) data, was 659.97 million on the date of Peak
VLR for the month of January 2012.
VLR numbers provide details on active customers at any given point of time,
excluding switched-off and out-of-the- coverage area customers.
Circle-wise, J&K has the highest proportion of VLR
subscribers with 82.33 percent followed by Assam (80.05 percent) and MP (79.10
percent); Mumbai has the lowest proportion with 61.79 percent.
Service provider wise, Idea Cellular leads the tally with
93.18 percent followed by Bharti (91.17 percent); Etisalat is at the bottom
with 25.56 percent.
Broadband subscriber base increased from 13.30 million at
the end of December 2011 to 13.42 million at the end of January this
year.
The number of requests from subscribers to change their operators under the
Mobile Number Portability (MNP) facility stood at 3.55 million in
January.
In MNP Zone-I (Northern and Western India) maximum number of requests were received
in Gujarat (3.04 million), followed by Rajasthan (2.72 million) and Maharashtra
(2.56 million).
In MNP Zone-II (Southern and Eastern India) maximum number of requests were
received in Karnataka (3.40 million), followed by Andhra
Pradesh (3.04 million).
According to the latest data by TRAI, Private operators
hold 88.56 percent of the wireless market share where as BSNL and MTNL, two PSU
operators hold only 11.44 percent market share.
Danish Khan
[email protected]
