Telephone subscriber base in India up at 904.46 mn in July

The total number of telephone subscribers in India increased to 904.46 million by the end of July 2013, with a net addition of 1.37 million subscribers during the month – showing a monthly growth of 0.15 per cent.

Out of the total subscribers, 548.85 million were from the urban areas and the remaining 355.60 million were rural subscribers, data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) showed.

The total teledensity at the end of July 2013 stood at 73.54, out of which the share of urban subscribers was 60.68 per cent while rural subscribers had a share of 39.32 per cent.

The share of urban subscribers increased from 60.40 per cent to 60.68 per cent whereas the share of rural subscribers declined from 39.60 per cent to 39.32 per cent in July 2013.

With this, the overall teledensity in India increased slightly from 73.50 at the end of June 2013 to 73.54 at the end of July 2013.

Subscription in the urban areas increased from 545.48 million in June 2013 to 548.85 million at the end of July 2013. Subscription in rural areas decreased from 357.61 million to 355.60 million during the period.

The monthly growth rates of urban and rural subscription stood at 3.30 per cent and (-) 1.93 per cent, respectively. The overall urban teledensity has increased from 145.35 to 146.00 whereas rural teledensity decreased from 41.90 to 41.64.

Total wireless subscriber base of the country increased from 873.36 million in June 2013 to 874.88 million at the end of July 2013, registering a monthly growth of 0.17 per cent. The share of urban wireless subscribers increased from 59.80 per cent to 60.10 per cent whereas the share of rural wireless subscribers declined from 40.20 per cent to 39.90 per cent.

Overall wireless teledensity in the country reached 71.13 from 71.08 in the previous month.

Wireless subscription in urban areas increased from 522.27 million in June 2013 to 525.78 million at the end of July 2013, while, in rural areas, subscription decreased from 351.10 million to 349.09 million during the same period.

Urban wireless teledensity during July 2013 increased from 139.16 to 139.87 whereas rural teledensity decreased from 41.14 to 40.88 during the period.

Private operators held 88.30 per cent of the wireless market share (based on subscriber base) where as BSNL and MTNL, the two PSU operators held only 11.70 per cent market share.

Out of the total 874.87 million wireless subscribers, 31.40 million were active on the date of peak VLR for July 2013. The proportion of VLR subscribers was approximately 83.60 per cent of the total wireless subscriber base reported by the service providers.

Service provider wise, Idea led the tally with 97.58 per cent followed by Vodafone (95.17 per cent) and Bharti (95.16 per cent).

Circle-wise, West Bengal had the highest proportion of VLR subscribers with 88.74 per cent, followed by Maharashtra (88.22 per cent) and Madhya Pradesh (87.64 per cent).TN (including Chennai) had the lowest proportion with 73.33 per cent.

As per the data reported by service providers, by the end of July 2013, about 97.82 million subscribers had submitted requests to different service providers for porting mobile number.

Wireline subscriber base declined from 29.73 million at the end of June 2013 to 29.58 million at the end of July 2013. Net reduction in wireline subscriber base was 0.15 million at the rate of 0.50 per cent.

The share of urban subscribers decreased from 78.11 per cent to 78.00 per cent at the end of July 2013 whereas share of rural subscribers increased from 21.89 per cent to 22.00 per cent. The overall wireline teledensity decreased from 2.42 in June 2013 to 2.40 in July 2013, with urban and rural teledensity being 6.14 and 0.76, respectively.

BSNL and MTNL, the two PSU operators, held 78.65 per cent of the wireline market share.

Mobile Number Portability (MNP) requests increased from 95.59 million subscribers at the end of June 2013 to 97.82 million at the end of July 2013. In July 2013 alone, 2.23 million requests have been made for MNP.

Active wireless subscribers on the date of 'peak visitor location register'  (VLR) in July 2013 were 731.40 million, 83.60 per cent of the total subscribers.

The total number of broadband subscribers has increased from 15.19 million at the end of June 2013 to 15.24 million at the end of July 2013, thereby showing a monthly growth of 0.33 per cent.

Broadband subscriber base increased 3.79 per cent during the 12 months ended July 2013.

As of 31 July 2013, there were 161 internet service providers (ISPs) providing broadband services in the country.

Top five ISPs in terms of market share (based on subscriber base) were: BSNL (9.97 million), Bharti Airtel (1.43 million), MTNL (1.10 million), Hathway (0.37 million) and You Broadband (0.32 million).