The TRAI telecom subscription report for the month of March 2014 is out and according to it, 1.15 million new subscribers have been added taking the total tally of mobile subscribers in India to 904.51 million.
The total subscriber addition is far less that what was added in the previous month (10 mln). The primary reason for low numbers is Reliance who seem to have lost chunk of subscribers.
Interestingly, when it comes to active subscribers, the jump was over 10 million additions – from 780.27 mln in Feb to 790.87 mln in March.
This clearly means that Reliance deactivated large chunk on non-active numbers from their system. The TRAI report shows that 6.98 million Reliance numbers went out of the system.
Here is the graph showing mobile subscriber additions over past 20 months.
If you see the chart above, it is quite clear that compared to 2012-13, this year has been quite good. In 2012-13, high numbers were showing up due to large amount of inactive numbers were included. After TRAI came up with 3 month deactivation rule for unused numbers, most non active numbers went out of the system.
The chart below clearly shows you how active subscriber base has been constantly growing and is not directly proportional to total subscribers added. The percentage of active subscribers now stands at 87.44 as compared to 77.27 in the month of August 2012.
Mobile Subscription Highlights [March 2014]
– 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.
– Urban India witnessed a decrease of 0.31 percent or 1,67 mln subscribers, while rural mobile subscriber base increased by 0.76 percent or 2.82 mln.
– Urban Teledensity decreased to 139.86 from 140.53 in Feb 14, while the rural tele-density increased to 43.27 from previous 42.97.
– Urban mobile subscriber share stands at 58.90% as compared 41.10% of rural subscribers.
– 2.60 million new Mobile portability requests were made in month of March 2014, taking the total tally of MNP requests since launch to 117.01 mln.
– Active Mobile Subscriber base increased from 780.27 mln in Feb 14 to 790.87 mln in March 14, taking the active percentage to 87.44 percent.
– Total Broadband (> 512 Kbps) subscription increased from 58.00 million at the end of February, 2014 to 60.87 million at the end of March, 2014. Out of which, wired broadband subscription is 14.86 million and wireless broadband subscription is 46.01 million.
– Wireline Subscriber base fell to 28.49 mln in Feb 2014 as compared to previously 28.59 million.
– India’s total telecom subscriber base (wireless+wireline) has increased to 933.0 mln in March 2014, compared to 931.95 mln in Feb 2014.
Operator Wise Market Share & Additions [March 2014]
As mentioned earlier, Reliance lost close to 7 million subscribers to unused number deactivation, while Tata continued loosing subscribers, though in smaller numbers. In last 12 to 18 months there has been hardly any months when Tata has shown positive growth in subscriber numbers.
On the other hand, Idea Cellular has been consistently doing very well. They have one of the highest percentages of active subscribers and they have been adding good numbers month after month. They now have 15.01 percent of mobile subscriber market share in India. Idea also added maximum number of subscribers (2.23 mln) in month of March, followed by Vodafone (2.21 mln) and Bharti (1.89 mln)
Top 8 Mobile Operators in Numbers [March 2014]
- Bharti Airtel – 205,388,903
- Vodafone – 166,560,986
- Idea – 135,788,186
- Reliance – 110,893,161
- BSNL – 94,649,445
- Tata – 62,999,732
- Aircel – 70,151,708
- Telewings / Uninor – 35,606,379
[Full TRAI Report]
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