The growth of mobile subscribers in India remains steady in last few months – According to the report released by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), India saw addition of 8 million new mobile subscribers in March 2012 taking the total tally of mobile subscribers in India to 919.17 million. The total telecom subscriber base including landline subscribers currently stands at 951.34 million users.
Here is a look at monthly mobile subscriber additions over last 12 months:
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Highlights of Telecom Subscriber Addition [March 2012]
- March 2012 witnessed 0.88% monthly growth in mobile subscriber addition
- India currently has 596 million Urban compared to 323 million rural mobile subscribers
- Rural subscriber base grew by close to 2% and now accounts for 35.2% of all mobile subscribers.
- Urban Teledensity stands at 163% while rural is at 38%.
- In March 2012, 47.6 lakh Indian subscribers made Mobile Number Portability requests taking the total tally to 3.7 crore who have now opted for MNP.
- Out of all mobile subscribers, 683 million were active in March 2012. So, 74.3% of mobile subscribers used mobile services atleast once.
Operator Wise Mobile Subscriber Additions [March 2012]
Bharti came back on top after lackluster showing in past few months – It added 2.5 millions subscribers [or 31.26%] in March. Idea continued its impressive showing by adding 2 million new subscribers to its kitty in March 2012. Although, there are licensing issues Uninor is facing, it hasn’t stopped their impressive showing. In last 3-4 month they are consistently on top. Uninor is still tariff card and bagging customers in bucket loads.
One the other hand, Tata’s poor showing continues and they lost 1.4 lakh subscribers. However, if you compare it to last month, this month is much better. I ‘d expect them to increase the tally from next month onwards.
With 181 million mobile subscribers, Bharti remains on top capturing 19.72% of Indian mobile market share. Reliance (153 mln) and Vodafone (150 mln) are very close to each other with only 3 million subscribers differentiating both of them. Idea’s good showing (113 mln) over last few month have ensured that they are sitting pretty at 4th position with 12.26% market share.
Broadband Subscription Data
Total Broadband subscriber base has increased from 13.54 million at the end of Feb 2012 to 13.79 million at the end of March 2012, there by registering a monthly growth of 1.86%. Yearly growth in broadband subscribers is 14.80% in last one year (March 2011 to March 2012).
As on 31st March 2012, India has 155 Internet Service Providers (ISPs) providing broadband services in the country. Top three ISPs in terms of market share are: BSNL, Bharti Airtel and MTNL.
[Source: TRAI report]
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