According to the latest TRAI report dated on 31st August 2012 , India’s wireless subscriber base again decreased from 913.49 million in July 2012 to 908.36 million at the end of August 2012, registering a negative growth of -0.56%. Its been the second consecutive month, we are seeing decrease in Mobile subscriber base.
This decline is due to large-scale disconnection of inactive mobile users who have not used their phones for two months or more, by some telecom service providers like Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular and Uninor.
Uninor losses the most with 23,83,031 mobile subscribers, followed by Bharti Airtel losing 19,02,683 mobile subscribers, Vodafone India losing 16,46,735 subscribers and Ideal Cellular losing 15,59,538 mobile subscribers during August 2012. The decrease is mainly due to the disconnection of inactive mobile users.
With the mass lose of subscribers Bharti Airtel retained its top position with 20.58% market share. Vodafone takes the second spot with 16.88% share and RCom in the third place with 14.82% share. Private operators hold 88.49% of the wireless market share in India (based on subscriber base) where as BSNL and MTNL, the two PSU operators hold only 11.51% market share. State Owned BSNL has been doing well with 10.93% market share, becoming the 5th largest telecom operator in India.
Out of the total 908.36 million wireless subscribers only 701.87 million were active on the date of Peak VLR for the month of August 2012. When taking telecom circle-wise J&K has the highest proportion of VLR subscribers with 83.67% followed by Maharshtra (82.89%) and Madhya Pradesh (82.29%). Tamil Nadu has the lowest proportion with 69.21%.
As per the data reported by the service providers on MNP, by the end of August 2012 about 64.92 million subscribershave submitted their requests to different service providers for porting their mobile number. Karnataka accounted for 8.12 million MNP request followed by Rajasthan (6.17 million) and Andhra Pradesh (6.15million).
Total Broadband subscriber base has increased from 14.68 million at the end of July 2012 to 14.82 million at the end of August 2012, registering a monthly growth of 1.37%. There are 149 Internet Service Providers (ISPs) which are providing broadband services in the country. BSNL topping the chart with 9.47 million broadband subscribers (63.9 % market share)followed by Bharti Airtel with 1.37 million subscribers (9.3%) and MTNL with 1.06 million subscribers (7.2%).
To know more read the complete TRAI telecom report highlights the Telecom Subscription Data as on 31st August 2012 here.