The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) recently released the performance indicator report (PIR) for the January-March 2013 quarter. The report highlights the growth trends in the telecom sector for this period. It has been prepared based on the information provided by service providers.
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According to the report, the country?s telecom subscriber base (wireless and wireline) increased from 895.51 million in December 2012 to 898.02 million in end-March 2013, registering a growth of 0.28 per cent over the previous quarter. Subscriber growth declined by 5.61 per cent on a year-on-year basis. There has been a steady decline in the subscriber base over the last year owing to operator initiatives to weed out inactive subscribers. The overall teledensity declined from 73.34 per cent in December 2012 to 73.32 per cent in March 2013.
Bharti Airtel led the pack in terms of the overall subscriber base. With regard to net additions during the quarter, Idea Cellular recorded the highest growth (7.66 million), followed by Bharti Airtel (6.29 million) and Vodafone India (4.88 million).
The urban telecom subscriber base decreased from 556.96 million in December 2012 to 548.8 million in March 2013, thereby reducing the urban teledensity from 149.9 per cent to 146.96 per cent.
The rural telecom subscriber base grew from 338.54 million to 349.22 million during this period, which increased the teledensity in these areas from 39.85 per cent to 41.02 per cent. The share of rural subscribers in the total user base increased from 37.8 per cent in December 2012 to 38.89 per cent in March 2013. Idea Cellular had the highest share of rural subscribers (54.09 per cent) in its user base, followed by Vodafone India (54 per cent).
Wireline
The country?s wireline subscriber base reduced from 30.79 million to 30.21 million during the review period, thereby decreasing the wireline teledensity to 2.47 per cent. The rural subscriber base dropped from 6.95 million to 6.71 million, while the urban subscriber base decreased by 1.42 per cent.
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) continued to lead the market with a 67.67 per cent share. However, the company?s subscriber base decreased by about 2.83 per cent during January-March 2013 and stood at 20.45 million at quarterend. Tata Teleservices Limited (TTSL) recorded the highest net additions (16,000 subscribers) during the period.
The total number of public call offices (PCOs) in the country stood at 1.26 million at end-March 2013, as compared to 1.41 million at end-December 2012. The decline in the number of PCOs over the corresponding quarter in 2012 was 37.08 per cent.
However, the number of village public telephones (VPTs) increased from 588,232 in December 2012 to 589,631 in March 2013. Currently, 99.31 per cent of 593,731 inhabited villages in the country (as per Census 2001) are connected.
Wireless
The total wireless (GSM and CDMA) subscriber base increased by 0.36 per cent from 864.72 million in December 2012 to 867.8 million in March 2013. The subscriber base decreased by 5.59 per cent over the corresponding quarter in 2012. Moreover, the teledensity increased from 70.82 per cent to 70.85 per cent during January-March 2013.
The rural subscriber base increased by 3.29 per cent in the quarter ended March 2013, as compared to a 0.99 per cent drop in the quarter ended December 2012, while the urban user base declined by 1.47 per cent in the quarter ended March 2013, as compared to a 6.75 per cent drop in the quarter ended December 2012. However, the share of rural subscribers increased from 38.35 per cent to 39.47 per cent during the quarter under review.
GSM services continued to dominate the wireless market, accounting for 91.5 per cent of the total wireless subscriber base. The GSM subscriber base stood at 794.03 million in March 2013 as compared to 786.98 million in December 2012, registering a growth of 0.89 per cent. Meanwhile, the CDMA user base decreased by 5.09 per cent from 77.74 million in December 2012 to 73.78 million in March 2013. With a subscriber base of 188.2 million, Bharti Airtel had the highest share of 23.7 per cent in the wireless market, followed by Vodafone India with 152.35 million users.
Among CDMA operators, Reliance Communications (RCOM) maintained its leadership position with a subscriber base of 38.69 million and a market share of 52.44 per cent. With regard to net additions, all operators except RCOM registered a decline during the quarter under review.
Mobile ARPUs
GSM services
Market competition impacted the ARPUs of GSM operators. The monthly all-India blended ARPU for GSM players increased from Rs 98 in December 2012 to Rs 105 in the March 2013.
Prepaid ARPUs increased from Rs 83 in December 2012 to Rs 89 in March 2013, while post-paid ARPUs declined from Rs 527 to Rs 519.
CDMA services
Between December 2012 and March 2013, TTSL, Sistema Shyam TeleServices Limited and RCOM discontinued their CDMA services in several circles. This impacted the performance parameters (ARPUs, minutes of usage [MoUs], etc.) for CDMA services. The monthly all-India blended ARPUs for CDMA mobile services increased from Rs 79.95 in the quarter ended December 2012 to Rs 95.25 in the quarter ended March 2013. The ARPUs for prepaid services increased from Rs 49.08 to Rs 58.92 during this period. The ARPUs for post-paid services increased from Rs 447.72 to Rs 453.28.
Mobile usage pattern
GSM services
The overall monthly MoUs per subscriber for GSM services increased by 6.28 per cent from 359 in the quarter ended December 2012 to 383 in the quarter ended March 2013. Prepaid MoUs increased by 6.62 per cent (from 339 in December 2012 to 361 in March 2013), while post-paid MoUs decreased by 0.76 per cent (953 to 946). The overall ratio of incoming and outgoing MoUs remained unchanged at 52:48. Outgoing SMSs per subscriber per month decreased from 39 in December 2012 to 30 in March 2013.
CDMA services
The overall monthly CDMA MoUs per subscriber increased by 19.5 per cent from 230.06 in the quarter ended December 2012 to 274.92 in the quarter ended March 2013. Prepaid and post-paid MoUs increased by 20.63 per cent and 3.9 per cent respectively during January-March 2013. Outgoing SMSs per month per user declined from 21 in December 2012 to 18 in March 2013.
Quality of service
During January-March 2013, the performance of wireless service providers improved with respect to parameters such as the worst-affected base transceiver stations due to downtime; the worst-affected cells with a call drop rate of over 3 per cent; metering and billing credibility for prepaid and post-paid services; the period of applying credit, waiver or adjustment to a customer?s account from the date of resolution of complaints; the percentage of requests for termination or closure of service complied with within seven days; and the time taken for refund of deposit after closure.
The performance of wireless service providers deteriorated during the quarter with regard to parameters such as providing connection with good voice quality; congestion at the point of interconnection; resolution of complaints related to billing, charging and validity; accessibility of the call centre and customer care; and the percentage of calls answered by operators (voice-to-voice) within 60 seconds.
Internet and broadband
As of March 2013, there were over 185 internet service providers (ISPs) in the country. As of March 2013, there were 21.61 million internet subscribers, excluding those customers who accessed the internet on their mobile handsets. This number stood at 21.57 million in December 2012. In previous PIRs, the number of CDMA subscribers accessing the internet was reported under the narrowband internet access category. For the January-March 2013 quarter, this has been excluded from the narrowband internet access category.
BSNL led the market with 60.74 per cent share (internet subscriber base of 13.12 million at end-March 2013), followed by Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (1.96 million). The 10 leading ISPs together accounted for 94.78 per cent of the total subscriber base. Maharashtra had the largest internet and broadband user base in the country, followed by Tamil Nadu.
The share of broadband in the total internet subscriber base during the quarter under consideration was 69.65 per cent, while the share of narrowband subscribers was 30.35 per cent. The broadband user base grew from 14.98 million in the quarter ended December 2012 to 15.05 million in the quarter ended March 2013. The segment witnessed a quarterly growth of 0.45 per cent and a year-on-year growth of 8.98 per cent. DSL was the preferred broadband technology, which was used by over 84.81 per cent of subscribers during January-March 2013. It was followed by the Ethernet local area network (6.14 per cent) and cable modem (5.26 per cent).
The number of narrowband subscribers decreased from 10.35 million in December 2012 to 6.56 million in March 2013, registering a quarterly decline of 0.5 per cent.
Financial performance
In March 2013, the sector?s gross revenue and adjusted gross revenue (AGR) stood at Rs 542.83 billion and Rs 352.79 billion respectively. The gross revenue and AGR increased by 2.7 per cent and 2.18 per cent respectively during the quarter ended March 2013.
