India adds 9.88 million new telecom users in January

Indian telecom service providers added 9.88 million new users in January 2012, taking the total subscriber base to 936.12 million, as the telecom sector growth momentum continued.
 
This is a 1.04 per cent rise from the total subscriber base of 926.53 million in December 2011, contributed mainly by addition of wireless subscribers. The overall tele-density (telephones per 100 people) in India reached 77.57 per cent, according to data issued by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

The country's mobile user base rose 1.11 per cent to 903.73 million in January, up from 893.84 million in the preceding month, led mainly by Uninor.

India's GSM operators added 8.44 million new subscribers in January, increasing the total subscriber base to 648.08 million, according to data released by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI). The addition was also lead by Uninor, which added 2.49 million new users. (See: India GSM operators add 8.44 million new users in January) 

According to TRAI data, Uninor, a joint venture between Europe's third biggest telecom company Telenor and Indian real estate firm Unitech, added 2.49 million users. Its total subscriber base rose to 38.79 million as of January 2012.

Private operators hold 88.56 per cent of the wireless market share, while state owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) hold only 11.44 per cent.

Aditya Birla group GSM service provider Idea Cellular added 1.74 million new users during the month, taking the total subscriber base to 108.12 million. Bharti Airtel, the country's largest telecom operator added 1.3 million subscribers, increasing its total base to 176.95 million.

Reliance Communications added 0.94 million, taking its total base to 151.02 million, while Vodafone India added 0.85 million new users, increasing its total number of users to 148.60 million.

BSNL and MTNL added 0.87 million and 57,564 new users in January. BSNL's total user base rose to 97.63 million, while that of MTNL was at 5.73 million.

Aircel, Tata Teleservices and Sistema Shyam added 0.81 million, 0.22 million and 0.14 million new subscribers, respectively.

However, the number of active mobile subscribers, according to the visitor location register (VLR) data, was 659.97 million on the date of peak VLR in January. VLR numbers provide details on active customers at any given point of time, excluding switched-off and out-of-the-coverage area customers.

The wireline subscriber base declined to 32.39 million in January 2012 from 32.69 million in December 2011, with BSNL and MTNL holding 80.91 per cent of the total market share.

Broadband subscriber base increased from 13.30 million at the end of December 2011 to 13.42 million as of end-January this year. As of 31 January 2012, there were 155 internet service providers (ISPs) offering broadband services in the country.

The top three ISPs in terms of market share were BSNL with 8.68 million subscribers, Bharti Airtel with 1.36 million and MTNL with 1.03 million subscribers.

The number of requests from subscribers to change their operators under the Mobile Number Portability (MNP) facility rose to 32.79 million at the end of January 2012, from 29.24 million in December 2011. In January alone, operators received 3.55 million MNP requests.