The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) recently released the performance indicator report (PIR) for the April-June 2018 quarter. The report, prepared on the basis of information provided by service providers, highlights the trends in the telecom sector during this period.

According to the report, the country’s telecom subscriber base (wireless and wireline) decreased from 1,206.22 million as of end March 2018 to 1,168.89 million as of end June 2018, registering a decline of 3.09 per cent over the previous quarter. Meanwhile, the subscriber base reflected a year-on-year decline of 3.46 per cent. The overall teledensity declined from 92.84 per cent as of March 31, 2018 to 89.72 per cent as of June 30, 2018.

Bharti Airtel led the pack with 348.52 million subscribers as of June 30, 2018, followed by Vodafone India (222.97 million) and Idea Cellular (220.6 million). With regard to net additions during the quarter, Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (RJIL) recorded the highest growth with 28.69 million additions followed by Idea Cellular with 9.39 million.

Telecom subscription in the urban areas declined from 681.61 million as of end March 2018 to 652.76 million as of end June 2018, while urban teledensity declined from 165.9 per cent to 158.16 per cent during the same period.

The rural telecom subscriber base declined from 524.61 million to 516.13 mi­llion during the same period, registering a decline in rural teledensity from 59.05 per cent to 57.99 per cent. The sha­re of rural subscribers in the total user base also increased from 42.2 per cent in Dec­ember 2017 to 43.49 per cent in March 2018. Idea Cellular continued to have the highest share of rural subscribers (54.05 per cent) followed by Vodafone India (53.59 per cent).

Wireline

The country’s wireline subscriber base reduced from 22.81 million to 22.4 million during the period under review, decreasing the wireline teledensity from 1.76 per cent to 1.72 per cent. The rural subscriber base dropped from 3.38 million to 3.24 million, a decline of 4.23 per cent over the previous quarter. Meanwhile, the urban subscriber base also decreased from 19.43 million to 19.16 million, down by 1.4 per cent over the previous quarter.

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) continued to lead the market with a 53.08 per cent share. However, the company’s subscriber base decreased by about 3.1 per cent during the period April-June 2018 to stand at 11.89 million at the end of the quarter. Bharti Airtel and Vodafone India recorded the highest net additions during the period.

The total number of public call offi­ces in the country declined from 360,053 as of end March 2018 to 330,504 as of end June 2018. The number of village public telephones declined from 199,057 as of end March 2018 to 186,951 as of end June 2018. At the end of the quarter, 31.49 per cent of the country’s 593,731 inhabited villages (as per Census 2001) were connected.

Wireless

The total wireless (GSM and CDMA) subscriber base declined by 3.12 per cent from 1,183.41 million in March 2018 to 1,146.49 million at the end of June 2018. The teledensity declined from 91.09 per cent to 88 per cent. The share of rural subscribers in the total wireless subscribers increased from 43.49 per cent at the end of March 2018 to 44.16 per cent at the end of June 2018.

GSM services, including long term evolution (LTE), continued to dominate the wireless market, accounting for 99.74 per cent of the total wireless subscriber base. The GSM subscriber base stood at 1,143.45 million in the quarter ended June 2018 as against 1,179.12 million in the quarter ended March 2018. Meanwhile, the CDMA user base registered a decline from 4.29 million in the quarter ended Mar­ch 2018 to 302 million in the quarter ended June 2018.

Mobile ARPUs and usage

GSM and LTE services

The monthly all-India blended ARPU for GSM and LTE services decreased by 8.92 per cent from Rs 76 in the quarter ended March 2018 to Rs 69 in the quarter ended June 2018. The monthly ARPU for GSM and LTE services declined by 12.97 per cent year on year during this quarter. Prepaid ARPUs for these services declined from Rs 62 to Rs 59, while post-paid ARPUs declined from Rs 360 to Rs 307.

The overall monthly minutes of usage per subscriber for GSM and LTE services in­­creased from 584 minutes during the quarter ended March 2018 to 608 minutes du­­ring the quarter ended June 2018. The ratio of incoming and outgoing minutes of usage stood at 50.3:49.7. The number of out­going SMSs per subscriber per month increased from 20 to 19 during the same period.

CDMA services

The monthly all-India blended ARPU for CDMA mobile services declined by 65.08 per cent from Rs 79 in the quarter ended March 2018 to Rs 28 in the quarter ended June 2018. The ARPU for prepaid services decreased from Rs 24 to Rs 16 during this period, while post-paid ARPUs decreased from Rs 393 to Rs 149.

The overall monthly CDMA minutes of usage per subscriber declined by 68.56 per cent from 61 minutes in the quarter en­ded March 2018 to 19 in the quarter ended June 2018. The outgoing minutes of usage declined from 39 to 2, while the nu­m­­ber of incoming minutes of usage also de­clined from 22 to 17 during the same period.

The prepaid minutes of usage per subscriber per month declined substantially from 90 in the quarter ended March 2018 to 16 in the quarter ended June 2018, while post-paid minutes of usage per subscriber per month decreased from 181 to 47.

Quality of service

During April-June 2018, the quality of service (QoS) performance of wireless service providers improved in terms of the network QoS DCR temporal distribution measure, QoS drop call rate spatial distribution measure point-of-interconnection congestion, metering and billing credibility (post-paid), and percentage of calls answered by the operators (voice to voice) within 90 seconds. On the other hand, the QoS performance of wireless service providers deteriorated on account of the call set-up success rate and session establishment success rate for circuit switched voice or VoLTE as applicable (within the licensee’s own network), accessibility of call centre/customer care, percentage of requests for the termination/closure of service complied with within seven days and the time taken for the refund of deposit after closure.

The QoS performance of wireless service providers improved in terms of res­ponse time to the customer for assistance. Meanwhile, it deteriorated on ac­count of the percentage of faults repaired by the next working day (for urban areas), mean time to repair, resolution of billing/ charging/credit and validity complaints, and per­centage of requests for the termination/closure of service complied with within seven days.

Internet and broadband

TRAI has divided the segment into two parts – internet subscribers who do not access services through mobile devices, and internet subscribers who access services through mobile devices.

As of end June 2018, the country had 512.26 million internet subscribers, in­clu­ding those accessing the internet through mobile handsets. The wired internet subscriber base stood at 21.16 million. RJIL led the internet market with 215.25 million subscribers as of end-June 2018, followed by Bharti Airtel (126.43 million) and Vodafone India (76.99 million). The top 10 internet service provi­­­ders together accoun­ted for 99.35 per cent of the subscriber base. The top five circles in terms of internet subscriptions (wired and wireless) were Maharashtra (41.81 million), Andhra Pra­desh (39.73 million), Tamil Nadu, including Chennai (37.76 million), Uttar Pradesh (East) (35.74 million) and Karnataka (33.33 million).

As of June 2018, there were 447.12 million broadband subscribers and 65.14 million narrowband subscribers. Wireless (dongle and phone) was the most preferred technology for providing broadband services and it constituted 94.99 per cent of the total broadband subscriber base. The top five circles in terms of broadband subscriptions were Maharashtra (37.64 million), Andhra Pradesh including Telangana (34.71 million), Tamil Nadu, including Ch­en­­­nai (33.99 million), Gujarat (30.48 million) and Karnataka (29.71 million).

Financial performance

Gross revenue and the adjusted gross revenue (AGR) of the telecom service sector for the quarter ended June 2018 stood at Rs 584.01 billion and Rs 365.52 billion respectively. The gross revenue declined by 6.1 per cent; however, AGR increased by 2.4 per cent during the April-June 2018 quarter as compared to the previous quarter.

Akanksha Mahajan Marwah