The Telecom Regulatory Authority of ndia (TRAI) has released the Indian elecom Service Performance Indicators report for the period between JulySeptember 2007. It provides an update on growth trends in various telecom services. The key highlights of the report are presented below…

Fixed line services
 At the end of the July-September 2007 quarter, the fixed line subscriber base stood at 39.58 million. Fixed line services are provided by five licensed private operators ?? Bharti Airtel, Tata Teleservices Limited (TTSL), Himachal Futuristic Communications Limited (HFCL), Shyam Telelink and Reliance Communications (RCOM) ?? and two PSUs ?? Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL).

Market share and performance
 The public sector incumbents, BSNL and MTNL, had a market share of 81.43 and 9.16 per cent respectively while the five private operators had a combined share of 9.41 per cent.

The quarter, however, saw an increase in the fixed line subscriber base of private operators including Bharti Airtel (from 1.97 million to 2.08 million), TTSL (from 580,000 to 630,000) and RCOM (from 640,000 to 700,000). In contrast, BSNL’s user base declined from 32.91 million to 32.22 million and MTNL’s fixed line subscriber base declined from 3.67 million to 3.63 million.

Overall, the wireline segment registered a decline of 510,917 lines, from 40.09 million in the previous quarter to 39.58 million. There was a negative growth of 1.27 per cent in the segment during the quarter.

Mobile services
The wireless subscriber base (mobile and WLL-F) continued on its growth trajectory during the July-September 2007 quarter with 209.07 million subscribers as on September 30, 2007. The GSM subscriber base reached 153.99 million while the CDMA subscriber base stood at 55.08 million. Overall, 24.15 million subscribers were added during the quarter.

Both the CDMA and GSM segments continued to grow at a brisk pace. While the GSM segment clocked a growth rate of 13.4 per cent, CDMA clocked a growth rate of 12.12 per cent.

Bharti was the largest GSM operator with 48.88 million subscribers, accounting for 31.74 per cent market share. Vodafone Essar, BSNL and Idea Cellular followed with 35.66 million (23.16 per cent), 30.3 million (19.68 per cent) and 18.67 million (12.12 per cent) subscribers respectively.

In the CDMA segment, RCOM was the largest operator, followed by TTSL and BSNL. RCOM had 31.29 million subscribers (accounting for 56.81 per cent of the market) while TTSL and BSNL had 19.5 million (35.4 per cent market share) and 3.82 million (6.94 per cent market share) subscribers respectively.

Bharti and RCOM provide services in all 23 circles in the country. Reliance Telecom, RCOM’s GSM arm, has applied for a unified service licence in all its areas of operation.

Mobile ARPUs
The average revenue per user (ARPU) for the GSM segment registered a decline of 7.4 per cent during the quarter under review. The all-India blended ARPU per month for GSM operators decreased from Rs 297 in June 2007 to Rs 275 in September 2007. Similarly, the all-India ARPU for CDMA operators fell from Rs 206 in June 2007 to Rs 173 in September.

The lowest blended GSM ARPU per month during the quarter was in Category B circles. It stood at Rs 238 which was lower than the previous quarter’s figure of Rs 261. The highest blended ARPU was in the metro circles. At Rs 353 it was, however, lower than the corresponding figure (Rs 369) for the previous quarter.

The all-India GSM ARPU for the post-paid segment also declined from Rs 655 in June to Rs 632 in September 2007. Likewise, the prepaid ARPU fell from Rs 248 in June to Rs 230 in September 2007.

For CDMA operators, the huge disparity between prepaid and post-paid ARPUs noted in the previous quarter continued in this quarter as well. The postpaid ARPU was 3.26 times the prepaid ARPU. This can be attributed to the declining importance of the processing fee on the net value of the recharge coupon purchased by prepaid subscribers.

Mobile usage pattern
The minutes of usage (MoU) per GSM subscriber declined by 2.94 per cent, from 476 in June 2007 to 462 in September. The MoU for CDMA operators also declined from 462 in June 2007 to 413. At 53:47, the ratio of incoming to outgoing minutes for GSM subscribers remained the same for both June 2007 and the period under consideration. For the post-paid segment, the ratio of incoming to outgoing minutes was 47:53 and for the prepaid segment, it was 54:46. For the CDMA segment, the figure stood at 49.9:50.1 for the period under consideration compared to 51:49 at the end of June.

Internet services
 The wireline internet subscriber base stood at 9.63 million at the end of September 2007 compared to 9.22 million at the end of June, a growth of 4.37 per cent. As of end September 2007, 46.37 million internet subscribers accessed the internet via their mobile handsets (GSM/CDMA).

BSNL retained its top position and reported an internet subscriber base of 4.42 million at the end of September 2007 as against 4.07 million at the end of the previous quarter. MTNL retained its second position with an internet subscriber base of 1.81 million. Sify was in third position with a subscriber base of 710,000.

High speed broadband
The number of broadband subscribers stood at 2.67 million at the end of September 2007 as compared to 2.4 million at the end of the corresponding quarter in the previous year. Out of the total, 2.17 million subscribers used DSlbased broadband; 319,010 subscribers accessed the internet through cable modems; 100,592 used Ethernet LAnbased broadband; 21,688 used fibre; 27,664 were radio customers; and 28,183 used other connectivity mediums. The broadband subscriber growth rate was 10.33 per cent as compared to 3.55 per cent in the quarter ended June 2007.