All major telecom operators including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, Idea Cellular, Reliance Communications and BSNL are seeing an increase in the number of subscribers base – says the latest telecom subscription data as on 31st October, 2013 released by TRAI.
India’s top telecom operator Bharti Airtel added maximum number of subscribers during the period by around 1.48 million followed by Vodafone India by around 1.15 million subscribers and Idea Cellular by around 1.14 million subscribers. All other major telecom operators added a significant amount subscribers during this period except MTNL, Tata Docomo and Unitech who loses significantly low amount of subscribers.
Total wireless subscriber base which include GSM, CDMA and FWP subscribers increased from 870.58 million in September, 2013 to 875.48 million at the end of October 2013, registering a monthly growth of 0.56%. Private telecom operators hold around 88.41% of the wireless market share where as Govt run BSNL and MTNL hold only 11.59% market share.
Overall the number of telephone subscribers in India increased from 899.86 million at the end of September, 2013 to 904.56 million at the end of October 2013, thereby showing a monthly growth of 0.52%.
MNP request up by 2.3 million
Mobile Number Portability requests increased from 102.49 million subscribers at the end of September, 2013 to 104.79 million at the end of October 2013 – a rise of 2.30 million requests during the month. Maximum number of MNP request have been received from Karnataka by around 12.6 million, followed by Rajasthan with 10.4 million and Andhra Pradesh with 9.5 million.
Broadband subscription reached 14.91 million
This time TRAI has calculated the broadband subscribers according to a notification issued by Department of Telecommunications (DOT) on 18th July, 2013 that revises the definition of Broadband as ‘Broadband is a data connection that is able to support interactive services including Internet access and has the capability of the minimum download speed of 512 Kbps to an individual subscriber from the point of presence (PoP) of the service provider intending to provide broadband service‘. Accordingly, the minimum broadband download speed has been increased from 256 Kbps and set to 512 Kbps.
Thus calculating only the wireline broadband subscribers having a broadband connection with minimum download speed of 512 Kbps, the subscription reached 14.91 million in October 2013. BSNL retained its top position in the broadband market with 9.96 million subscribers followed by Bharti Airtel with 1.32 million subscriber and MTNL with 1.11 million subscribers.
Source – TRAI