The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) recently released the performance indicator report for the October-December 2009 quarter. The report presents the growth trends for various telecom services and the performance of companies during the quarter. The total subscriber base (wireless and wireline) increased by 10.44 per cent from 509.03 million in September 2009 to 562.16 million in December 2009. The overall teledensity increased from 43.5 per cent to 47.88 per cent.

Fixed line services
The fixed line segment witnessed a decline in subscriber base from 37.31 million in September 2009 to 37.06 million in December 2009. The rural wireline subscriber base, however, showed an increase, rising to 174.53 million in December 2009 compared to 151.82 million in September 2009.

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) continued to dominate the fixed line market with a 75.8 per cent market share in spite of a marginal decline in its subscriber base from 28.45 million to 28.1 million.

Wireless services
The wireless subscriber base registered an 11.31 per cent increase to reach 525.09 million in December 2009 as against 471.73 million in September 2009. GSM services continued to dominate the wireless market with a subscriber base of 421.58 million, accounting for 80.3 per cent of the total wireless market. CDMA services, with a market share of 19.7 per cent, had a total of 103.51 million subscribers.

Bharti Airtel maintained its position as the country’s largest mobile operator with a subscriber base of 118.86 million as of December 2009, registering a growth of 7.56 per cent over the previous quarter. Amongst CDMA service providers, Reliance Communications dominated the market with a subscriber base of 55.59 million.

Mobile ARPU
 The average revenue per user (ARPU) for CDMA operators fell below the Rs 100 mark to stand at Rs 82 in the quarter under review. GSM ARPUs also declined by 12.4 per cent to Rs 144.

Mobile usage pattern
 While the minutes of usage (MoUs) per subscriber continued to show a declining trend for GSM services, they increased marginally for CDMA. GSM MoUs came down from 423 minutes in September 2009 to 411 minutes in December 2009, a decline of 2.8 per cent. CDMA MoUs increased by 3.2 per cent, with the total MoUs per subscriber per month rising from 308 minutes in September 2009 to 318 minutes in December 2009.

Internet and broadband services
 There were 15.24 million internet subscribers as of end-December 2009 as compared to 14.63 million in September 2009, a growth of 4.21 per cent. Among the 162 internet service providers, BSNL retained the top position with a market share of 55.91 per cent and a subscriber base of 8.52 million in December 2009, against 8.08 million subscribers in September 2009. The number of broadband subscribers rose to 7.82 million from 7.21 million, marking a growth of 8.5 per cent during the same period.

The number of leased line connections stood at 29,563 at the end of December 2009 as compared to 27,723 at the end of September 2009.

Internet MoUs
 The average MoUs per subscriber per month for dial-up subscribers were 324 minutes in December 2009, compared to 334 minutes in September 2009, marking a decline of 3.09 per cent.

VSAT services
 As of December 2009, there were 10 operators providing very small aperture terminal (VSAT) services in India. There was an addition of 3,809 VSAT users, taking the total to 116,666 subscribers as of December 2009, a growth of 3.38 per cent. Bharti Airtel remained the market leader with a subscriber base of 34,581 followed by Hughes Communications (33,833) and HCL Comnet (27,567).