The negative trend just continuing among Indian telecom sector, the total Indian wireless subscribers (GSM, CDMA & FWP) further declined by 13.63 Million, a decrease from 904.23 million in October 2012 to 890.60 million at the end of November 2012, registering a monthly growth of –1.51%. This decline is due to large-scale disconnection of inactive mobile users who have not used their SIM for two months or more, by telecom service providers.
Tata Teleservices continue to report the high loss with decrease in 4,233,067 mobile subscribers, followed by Bharti Airtel with decrease in 2,803,176 mobile subscribers and Vodafone with decrease in 2,380,048 mobile subscribers. Other telecom operators Idea Cellular, Aircel, Unitech, Sistema which operates under MTS brand, Videocon and Govt run BSNL & MTNL also reported decline in mobile subscribers during November 2012. On the gaining side Reliance communication added maximum number of mobile subscribers with 108,990 connection followed by Loop mobile with 20,805 subscribers and Quadrant(HFCL) with 5,724 subscribers.
Bharti Airtel retained its top position with 20.62% market share followed by Vodafone taking the second spot with 16.93% share and Reliance in the third place with 15.06% share. Private operators hold 88.19% of the wireless market share in India (based on subscriber base) where as BSNL and MTNL, the Govt owned operators hold only 11.64% market share.
The number of telephone subscribers in India decreased to 921.47 million at the end of November, 2012 from 935.18 million at the end of October 2012, thereby registering a monthly growth rate of -1.47%. The share of urban subscribers has declined to 62.70% from 63.17% whereas share of rural subscribers has increased to 37.30% in the month of November 2012. Wireline subscriber base declined from 30.95 million at the end of October 2012 to 30.87 Million at the end of November 2012. Net reduction in wireline subscriber base was 0.08 million. Govt owned BSNL and MTNL, the two PSU operators hold 79.66% of the Wireline market share.
Mobile Number Portability requests increased from 75.14 million subscribers at the end of October 2012 to 77.13 million at the end of November 2012. In the month of November 2012 alone, 1.99 million requests have been made for MNP. Maximum number of requests have been received in Karnataka (9.62 million) followed by Rajasthan (7.33 million) and Andhra Pradesh (7.22 million).
Broadband subscriber base has increased from 14.81 million at the end of October 2012 to 14.88 million at the end of November 2012, registering a monthly growth of 0.47%. There are 159 Internet Service Providers (ISPs) who are providing broadband services in the country. BSNL topping the chart with 9.79 million broadband subscribers (65.8 % market share) followed by Bharti Airtel with 1.39 million subscribers (9.3%) and MTNL with 1.08 million subscribers (7.2%).