TRAI released it’s monthly telecom subscription data and looks like 2014 has started with a bang as far as addition of new mobile subscribers go. In Jan 2014, India added 7.02 million new subscribers, highest addition in over 18 months. It also looks like 2014 will be much better year for Indian telecom operators as compared to 2013.
Check out the graph below to see mobile subscriber additions in last 18 months.
As mentioned previously the fall of subscriber numbers in 2012 and 2013 was primarily due to cleaning up on inactive numbers from the system, which telecom operators earlier reported in their total numbers. With TRAI coming up with the policy of releasing the numbers that have been inactive for more than 3 months, the mobile subscriber numbers that get reported are mostly active.
Due to this change, the active subscriber base also have been increasing steadily. India now has a active mobile subscriber base of 772.65 million (on the date of peak VLR). Active subscriber base now constitutes 86.49% of the total subscribers.
See the graph below that shows how percentage of active subscribers has been increasing over past 18 months.
The above graph clearly shows that even though in 2012/13, total numbers fell, active subscriber base was constantly increasing. The active percentage has raise by over 10 percent in last 18 months.
Mobile Subscription Highlights [January 2014]
– With an increase of 7.02 million in Jan 2014, total mobile subscriber base has reached to 893.31 million. India had 886.30 million subscribers by end of December 2013.
– Urban India witnessed a increase of 0.51 percent or 2.67 mln subscribers, while rural mobile subscriber base increased by 1.21 percent or 4.35 mln.
– Urban Teledensity increased to 139.42 from 138.94 in December 2013, while the rural tele-density increased to 42.43 from previous 41.95.
– Urban mobile subscriber share stands at 59.25% as compared 40.75% of rural subscribers.
– 2.56 million new Mobile portability requests were made in month of Jan 2014, taking the total tally of MNP requests since launch to 111.94 mln.
– Active Mobile Subscriber base increased from 762.40 mln in Dec 2013 to 772.65 mln in taking the active percentage to 86.49 percent.
– Total Broadband (> 512 Kbps) subscription reached 56.90 million at the end of January 2014. Out of which, wired broadband subscription is 14.55 million and wireless broadband subscription is 42.35 million.
– Wireline Subscriber base fell to 28.72 mln in Jan 2014 as compared to previously 28.89 million.
– India’s total telecom subscriber base (wireless+wireline) has increased to 922.04 mln in Jan 2014, compared to 915.19 mln in Dec 2013.
Operator Wise Market Share [January 2014]
This is the second consecutive month that BSNL has taken a significant hit to their numbers. Their subscriber bas fell by Whopping 1.575 million. Obviously, these are inactive numbers that have not been used for over 3 months.
On the other hand Bharti Airtel increased their market share even further by adding maximum number (2.433 mln) of subscribers in month of Jan. Vodafone (1.78 Mln), Idea (1.532 Mln), Aircel (1.532 Mln) and Telewings, formerly Uninor (1.135 mln) all added over million subscribers in month of Jan.
In recent times, Uninor has been doing quite well due to attractive plans they have launched.
Mobile Subscriber Numbers of Top 8 Mobile Operators [January 2014]
Bharti Airtel became the first operator in India to cross 200 million subscriber mark. Vodafone is atleast around 40 million subscribers shy of that milestone.
- Bharti Airtel – 200,839,755
- Vodafone – 162,188,298
- Idea – 130,217,704
- Reliance – 117,648,911
- BSNL – 94,716,915
- Tata – 63,195,062
- Aircel – 68,444,071
- Telewings / Uninor – 33,916,364
[TRAI Jan 2014 report]
[…] – With an increase of 1.15 mln in March 2014, total mobile subscriber base has reached to 904.51 million. India had 893.31 million subscribers by end of January 2014. […]