India’s telephone subscriber base rises 0.34% at 903.09 mn at end-June 2013

The number of telephone subscribers in India increased by 0.34 per cent to 903.09 million at the end of June 2013, from 900.05 million at the end of May 2013, mainly due to an expansion of the rural subscriber base.

The overall teledensity in the country increased to 73.50 at the end of June 2013 from 73.33 in the previous month.

Subscription in the urban areas increased from 545.30 million in May 2013 to 545.48 million at the end of June 2013 while subscription in rural areas increased from 354.75 million to 357.61 million during the same period.

The monthly growth rate of urban and rural subscription stood at 0.03 per cent and 0.81 per cent, respectively.

The share of urban subscribers showed a decline to 60.40 per cent from 60.59 per cent whereas the share of rural subscribers increased from 39.41 per cent to 39.60 per cent in June 2013.

The overall urban teledensity decreased from 145.54 to 145.35 while rural teledensity increased from 41.60 to 41.90.3.

The number of wireless subscribers has increased from 870.20 million in May 2013 to 873.36 million at the end of June 2013, showing a monthly growth of 0.36 per cent.

The share of urban wireless subscribers has decreased from 59.99 per cent to 59.80 per cent where as the share of rural wireless subscribers showed an increase from 40.01 per cent to 40.20 per cent.

The overall wireless teledensity in India has reached 71.08  at end-June 2013 from 70.90 in the previous month.

Wireless subscription in urban areas increased from 522.01 million in May 2013 to 522.27 million at the end of June 2013. The wireless subscription in rural areas increased from 348.19 million to 351.10 million during the same period. The urban wireless teledensity has decreased from 139.32 to 139.16 and rural teledensity has increased from 40.83 to 41.14.

Private operators held 88.26 per cent of the wireless market share (based on subscriber base) where as BSNL and MTNL, the two PSU operators had only 11.74 per cent of the market share.

Service provider wise, Idea leads the tally of VLR subscribers as per Visitor Location Register with 97.90 per cent followed by Vodafone (95.45 per cent).

Circle-wise, Maharashtra had the highest proportion of VLR subscribers with 88.84 per cent, followed by Assam (88.28 per cent) and Madhya Pradesh (88.09 per cent). TN (including Chennai) had the lowest proportion with 72.96 per cent.

As per the data reported by the service providers, by the end of June 2013, about 95.59 million subscribers have submitted their requests to different service providers for porting their mobile number.

Inmobile number portability (MNP) Zone-I (Northern & Western India) the maximum number of requests have been received in Rajasthan (9.32 million) followed by Gujarat (8.14 million) whereas in MNP Zone-II (Southern & Eastern) maximum number of requests have been received in Karnataka (11.23 million) followed by Andhra Pradesh Service area (8.67 million).

The total number of subscribers who have submitted their request for MNP in June 2013 stood at 2.03 million.

Wireline subscriber base declined from 29.85 million at the end of May 2013 to 29.73 million at the end of June 2013. Net reduction in wireline subscriber base stood at 0.12 million. The share of urban subscribers has increased from 78.03 per cent to 78.11 per cent where as share of rural subscribers has declined from 21.97 per cent to 21.89 per cent.

The overall wireline teledensity has decreased from 2.43 in May 2013 to 2.42 in June 2013, with urban and rural teledensity being 6.19 and 0.76, respectively.

BSNL and MTNL, the two PSU operators, held 78.85 per cent of the wireline market share.

Total broadband subscriber base has increased from 15.13 million at the end of May 2013 to 15.19 million at the end of June 2013, there by showing a monthly growth of 0.39 per cent. Yearly growth in broadband subscribers is 4.74 per cent during the last one year (June 2012 to June 2013).

As of 30 June 2013, there were 161 internet service providers (ISPs) providing broadband services in the country. Out of these, 125 ISPs (having 98.89 per cent market share) have provided broadband subscription data for the month of June 2013, for the rest of the ISPs data from previous month has been retained.

The top five ISPs in terms of market share (based on subscriber base) are: BSNL (9.97 million), Bharti Airtel (1.41 million), MTNL (1.10 million), Hathway (0.37 million) and You Broadband (0.32 million).