The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) recently released the performance indicator report (PIR) for the April-June 2020 quarter. The report, prepared on the basis of information provided by service providers, highlights the growth trends in the telecom sector during this period.

According to the report, the country’s telecom subscriber base (wireless and wireline) decreased from 1,177.97 million as of end-March 2020 to 1,160.52 million as of end-June 2020, registering a decline of 1.48 per cent. Meanwhile, the subscriber base reflected a year-on-year decline of 2.20 per cent over the same quarter in 2019. The overall teledensity decreased from 87.97 per cent as of March 31, 2020 to 85.85 per cent as of June 30, 2020.

Reliance Jio emerged as the leader with 398.70 million subscribers as of June 30, 2020, followed by Bharti Airtel (320.94 million) and Vodafone Idea (Vi) (305.56 million). With regard to net additions during the quarter, Jio recorded the highest growth with 10.10 million additions, while other operators witnessed a negative growth in their subscriber base. Vi lost the highest number of subscribers at 14.06 million, while Airtel and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) lost 11.26 million and 2.12 million subscribers, respectively.

Telecom subscriptions in urban areas decreased from 656.46 million as of end-March 2020 to 636.83 million at the end of June 2020, while urban teledensity decreased from 142.31 per cent to 137.35 per cent. Meanwhile, the rural telecom subscriber base increased from 521.51 million as of end-March 2020 to 523.69 million as of end-June 2020, resulting in an increase in rural teledensity from 58.79 per cent to 58.96 per cent. The share of rural subscribers in the total user base increased from 44.27 per cent to 45.13 per cent during the period under consideration. Vi had the highest share of rural subscribers (54.33 per cent), followed by Bharti Airtel at 47.08 per cent.

Wireline

The country’s wireline subscriber base decreased from 20.22 million to 19.81 million during the period under review, thereby reducing wireline teledensity from 1.50 per cent to 1.47 per cent.

The rural wireline subscriber base decreased from 2.24 million as of end-March 2020 to 2.09 million as of end-June 2020, registering a decline of 6.94 per cent. Meanwhile, the urban wireline subscriber base declined from 17.97 million to 17.72 million, down by 1.40 per cent.

BSNL continued to lead the market with a 41.27 per cent share. However, the company’s subscriber base decreased by 6.33 per cent during April-June 2020 to stand at 8.18 million at the end of the quarter. Jio recorded the highest net additions (0.36 million subscribers) during the period. The total number of public call offices in the country declined from 177,525 during the quarter ended March 2020 to 161,937 during the quarter ended June 2020. Meanwhile, the number of village public telephones increased from 67,762 to 68,406.

Wireless

The total wireless subscriber base (GSM and CDMA) decreased by 1.47 per cent from 1,157.75 million in March 2020 to 1,140.71 million in June 2020. The overall teledensity declined from 85.87 per cent to 84.38 per cent. The rural wireless subscriber base increased from 519.27 million to 521.60 million. As a result, the share of rural subscribers in the total wireless subscriber base increased to 45.73 per cent during the period under consideration. Meanwhile, the number of urban wireless subscribers decreased from 638.48 million to 619.11 million.

With a subscriber base of 397.25 million, Reliance Jio had the highest share of 34.82 per cent in the wireless market, followed by Bharti Airtel with 316.67 million users (27.76 per cent) and Vi with 305.10 million users (26.75 per cent). Only Reliance Jio showed a positive growth in its wireless subscriber base, with a net addition of 9.73 million. Vi, Bharti Airtel and BSNL witnessed a decline of 14.06 million, 11.14 million and 1.56 million in their subscriber base, respectively.

Mobile ARPUs and usage

The monthly all-India blended ARPU for GSM and LTE services declined by 1.50 per cent from Rs 91.49 in the quarter ended March 2020 to Rs 90.12 in the quarter ended June 2020. Prepaid ARPUs remained the same at Rs 84 while post-paid ARPUs declined from Rs 244 to Rs 224.

The overall monthly minutes of usage (MoUs) per subscriber per month decreased from 750 minutes to 744 minutes during the period. The ratio of incoming and outgoing MoUs stood at 50.1:49.9 during the quarter ended June 2020. Meanwhile, the average number of outgoing SMSs per subscriber per month stood at 15.

Quality of service

During April-June 2020, the quality of service (QoS) performance of wireless service providers improved in terms of DCR (drop call rate) spatial distribution and metering and billing credibility for post-paid users. The QoS performance of wireless service providers deteriorated in terms of accessibility to call centres/customer care, percentage of calls answered by operators (voice-to-voice) within 90 seconds and time taken for the refund of deposits after closures.

Meanwhile, the QoS performance of wireline service providers showed improvement in terms of number of faults per 100 subscribers per month. It deteriorated in terms of number of faults repaired by the next working day (for urban areas), mean time to repair, metering and billing credibility for post-paid users, accessibility to call centres/customer care, percentage of calls answered by operators (voice-to-voice) within 90 seconds and time taken for the refund of deposits after closures.

Internet and broadband

TRAI has divided the segment into two parts – internet subscribers who do not access services through mobile devices and those who do. As of end-June 2020, the country had 749.07 million internet subscribers, including those accessing the internet through mobile handsets. The wired internet subscriber base stood at 23.06 million. Reliance Jio led the internet market with 398.31 million subscribers as of end-June 2020, followed by Bharti Airtel (176.42 million) and Vi (135.67 million). The top 10 internet service providers together accounted for 99.45 per cent of the subscriber base. The top five circles in terms of internet subscriptions (wired and wireless) were Maharashtra (64.10 million), Andhra Pradesh including Telangana (59.15 million), Uttar Pradesh East (55.22 million), Tamil Nadu including Chennai (51.04 million) and Madhya Pradesh including Chhattisgarh (49.99 million). As of end-June 2020, there were 698.23 million broadband subscribers and 50.84 million narrowband subscribers. Wireless (dongle and phone) was the most preferred technology for providing broadband services and it constituted 97.07 per cent of the total broadband subscriber base. The top five circles in terms of broadband subscriptions were Maharashtra (59.88 million), Andhra Pradesh including Telangana (55.7 million), Uttar Pradesh East (50.51 million), Tamil Nadu including Chennai (47.34 million) and Madhya Pradesh (46.29 million).

Wireless data usage

The total wireless data usage increased from 22.85 million terabytes (TB) during the quarter ended March 2020 to 25.36 million TB during the quarter ended June 2020. Of the total data wireless usage, 2G data usage stood at 0.15 million TB, 3G at 0.82 million TB and 4G data usage at 24.38 million TB. The share of 3G and 4G in the total volume of wireless data usage was about 3.25 per cent and 96.12 per cent respectively, during the quarter ended June 2020.

Financial performance

During the quarter ended June 2020, the sector’s gross revenue and adjusted gross revenue (AGR) stood at Rs 668.58 billion and Rs 441.28 billion respectively. The gross revenue decreased by 1 per cent as compared to the previous quarter, while the AGR fell by 1.81 per cent. That said, the gross revenue and AGR recorded a year-on-year growth of 8.65 per cent and 12.79 per cent, respectively.

By Kuhu Singh Abbhi