The growth of Indian mobile subscribers seems to be back on track. For the first time in nearly 2 years, monthly mobile subscriber addition numbers have crossed 10 million in one month. This is also the 5th consecutive month when the numbers have seen a positive growth.
According to monthly TRAI telecom subscription report, India added 10.03 million subscribers in month of February, taking the total tally of subscribers to 903.36 million.
Idea Cellular was the front runner with 3.33 million new subscriber added in their kitty.
Here is the graph showing subscriber additions over last 18 months.
Active subscriber base also saw significant increase in month of February. It jumped to 780.27 million from 772.65 mln in January 20134. Active subscribers now represent 86.37% of the total subscribers.
Here is a graph showing Total vs active subscriber percentage
Mobile Subscription Highlights [February 2014]
– With an increase of 10.03 million in Feb 2014, total mobile subscriber base has reached to 903.36 million. India had 893.31 million subscribers by end of January 2014.
– Urban India witnessed a increase of 0.96 percent or 5.10 mln subscribers, while rural mobile subscriber base increased by 1.36 percent or 4.94 mln.
– Urban Teledensity increased to 140.53 from 139.42 in Jan 14, while the rural tele-density increased to 42.97Â from previous 42.43.
– Urban mobile subscriber share stands at 59.16% as compared 40.84% of rural subscribers.
– 2.47 million new Mobile portability requests were made in month of Feb 2014, taking the total tally of MNP requests since launch to 114.41 mln.
– Active Mobile Subscriber base increased from 772.65 mln in Jan 14 to 780.27 mln in Feb 14, taking the active percentage to 86.37 percent.
–Â Total Broadband (> 512 Kbps) subscription reached 58.00 million at the end of Feb 2014. Out of which, wired broadband subscription is 14.80 million and wireless broadband subscription is 43.20 million.
– Wireline Subscriber base fell to 28.59 mln in Feb 2014 as compared to previously 28.72 million.
– India’s total telecom subscriber base (wireless+wireline) has increased to 931.95 mln in Feb 2014, compared to 922.04 mln in Jan 2014.
Operator Wise Market Share [Feb 2014]
In Feb 14, Idea did exceedingly well adding nearly 3.332 million subscribers. Bharti Airtel added 2.656 million followed by Vodafone who added 2.155 million. Interestingly the top 3 operators themselves added over 80 percent of all new subscribers.
Sistema (-653k), Tata (-47k) and Loop (-10k) were the 3 operators who lost their subscribers in month of February 2014.
Top 8 Mobile Operators in Numbers [February 2014]
- Bharti Airtel – 203,495,933
- Vodafone – 164,344,170
- Idea – 133,550,428
- Reliance – 117,875,020
- BSNL – 94,834,936
- Tata –  63,147,468
- Aircel – 69,147,005
- Telewings / Uninor – 34,887,258
[Full TRAI report for Feb 14]
[…] Reliance Communication, Aircel and Tata Teleservices have joined hands to sign a Tripartite agreement that will help all of them offer 3G services Pan India. They are currently the fourth, sixth and seventh largest telecom providers in India. Reliance has 117 million, Aircel has 69 million and Tata has 63 million subscribers as of February 2014. […]