The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) recently released the performance indicator report for the July-September 2012 quarter. The report highlights the growth trends in the telecom services sector for this period. It has been prepared on the basis of information provided by telecom service providers.

According to the report, the country?s telecom subscriber base (wireless and wireline) dropped from 965.52 million as of end-June 2012 to 937.7 million as of end-September 2012, registering a decrease of 2.88 per cent over the previous quarter. There was a year-on-year growth of 3.39 per cent in the user base during the quarter under review. The overall teledensity declined from 79.58 per cent in June 2012 to 77.04 per cent in September 2012.

The telecom subscriber base in urban areas decreased from 621.76 million to 595.69 million during this period, which resulted in a reduction in the urban teledensity from 169.03 per cent to 161.13 per cent. The rural telecom subscriber base also decreased from 343.76 million to 342.01 million, taking the rural teledensity from 40.66 per cent to 40.36 per cent. The share of rural subscribers in the total telecom user base increased from 35.6 per cent to 36.47 per cent.

Wireline

The country?s wireline subscriber base dropped from 31.43 million to 31.08 million during the review period, bringing down the wireline teledensity from 2.59 per cent to 2.55 per cent.

The rural subscriber base marked a  decline of 11.48 per cent from 8.02 million at the end-September 2011 to 7.1 million at end-September 2012. During the same period, the urban wireline subscriber base declined by 5.17 per cent. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) continued to lead the market with a share of 68.73 per cent and a subscriber base of 21.36 million for the quarter ended September 2012. However, for the quarter ended September 2012, the company?s subscriber base decreased by about 1.6 per cent over the previous quarter. Tata Teleservices Limited recorded the highest net additions (0.014 million subscribers) during the quarter.

The total number of public call offices in the country stood at 1.55 million for the quarter ended September 2012 as compared to 1.71 million for the quarter ended June 2012. The decline over the same quarter of 2011 (ended September) was 40.21 per cent. Only the Delhi, Bihar and Odisha service areas showed positive growth in wireline services.

The number of village public telephones increased to 584,467 at end-September 2012 from 584,020 at end-June 2012. Currently, 98.44 per cent of the total 593,731 inhabited villages in the country (as per the 2001 Census) are connected.

Wireless

The country?s telecom subscriber base decreased by over 27.48 million during the quarter ended September 2012. TRAI attributed the slide in net user addition to ?large-scale disconnection by operators?.

The total wireless (GSM+CDMA) subscriber base registered a negative growth of 2.94 per cent from 934.09 million to 906.82 million during the quarter ended September 2012. The year-on-year growth rate for wireless subscribers for the quarter under review was 3.78 per cent. The wireless teledensity decreased from 76.99 per cent to 74.49 per cent during the quarter.

GSM services continued to dominate the wireless market. The GSM subscriber base stood at 808.8 million at September 2012, accounting for 89.21 per cent of the total wireless subscriber base. However, the GSM subscriber base registered a negative growth of 2.77 per cent for the period under review. As of September 2012, the CDMA segment had a total of 97.82 million subscribers and a market share of 10.79 per cent.

Bharti Airtel, with a subscriber base of 185.92 million, had the highest share in the wireless market at 20.51 per cent as of September 2012, followed by Vodafone India with 152.66 million users.

Amongst the CDMA operators, Reliance Communications maintained its lead with a subscriber base of 54.49 million and a 55.71 per cent market share. However, in terms of net additions during the quarter, Sistema Shyam Teleservices Limited (SSTL) added the highest number of subscribers, about 0.04 million.

Mobile ARPUs

Market competition took its toll on the ARPUs of both GSM and CDMA operators. The monthly ARPU of GSM players declined from Rs 95.47 per month in June 2012 to Rs 95.05 per month in September 2012. The ARPU of GSM operators increased by 2.15 per cent year on year during the quarter under review. The monthly ARPU for CDMA mobile services increased from Rs 75.30 in the quarter ended June 2012 to Rs 78 in the quarter ended September 2012. On a year-on-year basis, the ARPU of CDMA operators increased by 10.2 per cent during the quarter.

Mobile usage pattern

In spite of innovative tariff plans, the monthly minutes of usage (MoUs) reduced for both GSM and CDMA services over the previous quarter. The overall MoU per subscriber per month for GSM services decreased by 1 per cent from 346 minutes in the quarter ended June 2012 to 342 minutes in the quarter ended September 2012. Prepaid MoUs per subscriber decreased by 1.27 per cent (from 325 to 321) and the post-paid MoUs decreased by 0.72 per cent (from 967 to 960). The overall MoUs per subscriber per month for CDMA subscribers decreased by 1.49 per cent from 228.63 minutes in the quarter ended June 2012 to 225.22 minutes in the quarter ended September 2012.

Quality of service

During July-September 2012, the performance of wireless service providers deteriorated with respect to the worst affected base transceiver stations due to downtime, traffic channel (TCH) congestion, connection with good voice quality, metering and billing credibility (post-paid services), resolution of billing/charging/validity complaints, percentage of requests for termination /closure of service within seven days, percentage of calls answered by the operators (voice-to-voice) within 60 seconds, and the time taken for refund of deposits.

The performance of wireless service providers improved during the quarter with regard to parameters such as network congestion, worst affected cells having a TCH drop (call drop) rate of over 3 per cent, point of interconnection congestion and accessibility of call centre/customer care.

Internet and broadband

The number of internet subscribers increased by 5.97 per cent from 23.01 million at the end of June 2012 to 24.01 million at end-September 2012. Also, 446.99 million wireless subscribers opted for data services during July-September 2012. BSNL held 53.23 per cent market share with an internet subscriber base of 12.7 million at end-September 2012, followed by Reliance Communications Infrastructure Limited (5.1 million) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (1.9 million).  The 10 leading internet service providers together accounted for 95 per cent of the subscriber base.

The share of broadband in the total internet subscriber base decreased from 63.31 per cent to 62.74 per cent during the period under consideration. The broadband subscriber base increased from 14.57 million in the quarter ended June 2012 to 14.68 million during the quarter ended September 2012. The segment witnessed a year-on-year growth of 14.42 per cent. DSL was the preferred broadband technology, which was used by over 84.6 per cent of subscribers.