India's telecom subscriber base reaches 429.72 million; revenue tops Rs40,000 crore: TRAI
15 Jul 2009
As per the Telecom Authority of India's quarterly figures for the Indian telecom sector, the country's total telecom subscribers reached 429.72 million by the month of March, an 11.68 per cent increase from the December 2008 figure of 384.79 million.
The teledensity of subscribers has increased to 36.98. While wireless users increased to 391.76 million, the number of wireline subscribers stood at 37.96 million.
The gross telecom revenue grew 2.6 per cent to more than Rs40,000 crore in the quarter from Rs39,408 crore in the last quarter. Of this, the public operators Bharat Sanchar Nigam and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam accounted for Rs10,599 crore, and the private sector earned Rs29,846 crore.
The rural wireline users showed a decline by 0.93 per cent to 10.58 million, while the number of wireless users grew by 17.77 per cent to 109.71 million.
There was a decrease in the average revenue per user (ARPU). For GSM services, the countrywide blended ARPU per month declined by 6.82 per cent to Rs205. For postpaid category, ARPU declined by 2.8 per cent to Rs543 while there was a 6 per cent decline in prepaid services ARPU to Rs181.
In the CDMA sector, the monthly ARPU declined to Rs99.
The internet wireline subscriber base increased by 5.30 per cent to 13.54 million, with broadband users growing 12.68 per cent to 6.22 million.
Public call offices showed an increase of 3.68 per cent to 6.20 million.
