The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) recently released the per­­­­­­formance indicator report (PIR) for the January-March 2017 quarter. The report highlights the growth trends in the telecom sector during this period. It has been prepared based on the information provided by service providers.

According to the report, the country’s telecom subscriber base (wireless and wireline) increased from 1,151.78 million as of end-December 2016 to 1,194.58 million as of end-March 2017, registering a growth of 3.72 per cent over the previous quarter. The subscriber base reflected a year-on-year growth of 12.82 per cent over the  quarter ended March 2016. The overall teledensity increased from 89.9 per cent as on December 31, 2016 to 92.98 per cent as on March 31, 2017.

Bharti Airtel was in the lead with 277.51 million subscribers as on March 31, 2017. It was followed by Vodafone India (209.92 million) and Idea Cellular (195.37 million). With regard to net additions during the quarter ended March 2017, Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (RJIL) recorded the highest growth (36.52 million), followed by Bharti Airtel (7.83 million).

Telecom subscription in urban areas increased from 683.14 million as of end-December 2016 to 692.97 million as of end-March 2017, whereas urban teledensity increased from 170.15 per cent to 171.8 per cent during the same period. The rural telecom subscriber base increa­sed from 468.64 million in December 2016 to 501.61 million in March 2017 and the rural teledensity increased from 53.27 per cent to 56.91 per cent. Further, the share of rural subscribers in the total user base increased from 40.69 per cent in Decem­ber 2016 to 41.99 per cent in March 2017. Idea Cellular had the highest share of rural subscribers (55.69 per cent) in its user base, followed by Vodafone India (54.51 per cent).

Wireline

The country’s wireline subscriber base re­­mained the same at 24.4 million in Mar­­­­­ch 2017 as compared to December 2016. The wireline teledensity also rema­in­ed the same and stood at 1.9 per cent. How­­­ev­er, the rural subscriber base declined sli­gh­tly, from 3.86 million to 3.85 million, whi­­le the urban subscriber base increased slightly, from 20.55 million to 20.56 million. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) continued to lead the market with a 56.1 per cent share. How­ever, the company’s subscriber base decrea­sed by about 0.35 per cent during the January-March 2017 period and stood at 13.69 million at the end of the quarter. Bharti Airtel recorded the highest net additions (36,000 subscribers) during this period.

The total number of public call offices in the country declined from 491,190 as of end-December 2016 to 452,036 as of end-March 2017. Further, the number of village public telephones declined from 236,163 to 229,685 during the same period.

Wireless

The total wireless (GSM and CDMA) subscriber base grew by 3.8 per cent from 1,127.37 million in December 2016 to 1,170.18 million in March 2017. Teleden­sity increased from 88 per cent to 91.08 per cent during the period January-March 2017. The share of rural subscribers increa­sed from 41.23 per cent to 42.54 per cent during the quarter under review.

GSM services continued to dominate the wireless market, accounting for 98.92 per cent of the total wireless subscriber base. The GSM subscriber base stood at 1,157.59 million in March 2017 as compared to 1,112.3 million in December 2016, registering a growth of 4.07 per cent. Mean­­while, the CDMA user base registered a decline of 16.46 per cent, from 15.07 million in December 2016 to 12.59 million in March 2017.

With a subscriber base of 273.65 million, Bharti Airtel had the highest share of 23.64 per cent in the GSM market during the quarter ended March 2017, followed by Vodafone India with 209.06 million users and Idea Cellular with 195.37 million users. Meanwhile, RJIL witnessed the maximum net additions in its GSM (long term evolution) subscriber base during the period under review.

Among CDMA operators, Tata Tele­ser­­vices Limited (TTSL) led the market with a subscriber base of 6.9 million and a market share of 54.83 per cent. It was followed by Sistema Shyam TeleServices Li­mi­­ted and BSNL with 4.91 million and 0.78 million subscribers respectively.

Mobile ARPUs and usage

GSM services

The monthly all-India blended ARPU for GSM players decreased from Rs 103.92 during the quarter ended December 2016 to Rs 82.68 during the quarter ended March 2017. Prepaid ARPUs decreased from Rs 86 in December 2016 to Rs 67 in March 2017 while post-paid ARPUs decreased from Rs 456 to Rs 412.

The overall monthly minutes of usage (MoUs) per subscriber for GSM services increased from 360 during the quarter en­ded December 2016 to 403 during the quarter ended March 2017. The overall ra­tio of incoming and outgoing MoUs stood at 51.4:48.6. The number of outgoing SMSs per subscri­ber per month decli­ned from 18 to 17 during the same period.

CDMA services

The monthly all-India blended ARPUs for CDMA mobile services declined from Rs 141.42 in the quarter ended December 2016 to Rs 131.34 in the quarter ended March 2017. The ARPUs for prepaid services decreased from Rs 68 to Rs 62 during this period. The ARPUs for post-paid services also decreased from Rs 593 to Rs 527.

The overall monthly CDMA MoUs per subscriber decreased by 2.35 per cent from 255 in the quarter ended December 2016 to 249 in the quarter ended March 2017. Prepaid MoUs per subscriber per month decreased from 261 to 257 during the same period. Post-paid MoUs per subscriber per month decreased from 218 to 199.

Quality of service

During the period January-March 2017, the performance of 2G wireless service providers in terms of quality of service (QoS) improved on parameters such as base transceiver stations (BTSs) accumulated downtime (not available for service), worst-affected BTSs due to downtime, worst-affected cells having more than 3 per cent TCH call drop rate, point of interconnection congestion, metering and billing credibility (prepaid) and time taken for refund of deposits after closure. Meanwhile, the parameters showing a deterioration in QoS for 2G wireless service providers included connections with good voice quality, metering and billing credibility (post-paid), accessibility of call centre/customer care, percentage of calls answered by the operators (voice-to-voice) within 90 seconds and percentage of requests for termination/closure of service complied with within seven days.

For 3G operators, the only parameter that showed an improvement in terms of QoS was worst-affected BTSs and Node-Bs due to downtime.

Internet and broadband

TRAI has classified the parameters for this segment  under two categories – internet subscribers without internet access through mobile devices and internet subscribers accessing services through mobile devices.

As of March 2017, the country had 154 internet service providers (ISPs) and 422.19 million internet subscribers, including those accessing the internet through their mobile handsets. The number of wired internet subscribers stood at 21.58 million. A significant development during the period under review was that the internet market was led by RJIL, with 25.74 per cent market share and an internet subscriber base of 108.6 million. It was followed by Bharti Airtel (87.3 million), Vodafone India (66.86 million) and Idea Cellular (42.24 million). Further, RJIL had an even higher market share of 27.13 per cent in the wireless internet market.

The top 10 ISPs together accounted for 98.38 per cent of the total subscriber base. The top five states in terms of internet subscriptions (wired and wireless) were Maharashtra (35.94 million), Tamil Nadu (including Chennai) (32.32 million), Andhra Pradesh (31.8 million), Uttar Pradesh East (28.58 million) and Gujarat (27.3 million).

Further, as of March 2017, there were 276.52 million broadband subscribers and 145.68 million narrowband subscribers. Wireless (dongle and pho­ne) was the most preferred technology used by the service providers to provide broadband services and it accounted for 93.19 per cent of the total broadband subscri­bers. The top five states with regard to broadband subscriptions were Maha­ras­h­tra (23.36 million), Tamil Nadu including Chennai (22.77 million), Andhra Pradesh (21.07 million), Delhi (20.8 million) and Karnataka (19.59 million).

Financial performance

During the quarter ended March 2017, the sector’s gross revenue and adjusted gross revenue (AGR) stood at Rs 633.15 billion and Rs 408.31 billion respectively. The gross revenue and AGR decreased by 7.35 per cent and 15.6 per cent respectively as compared to the quarter ended March 2016.

Kuhu Singh