The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has recently released the performance indicator report for the quarter April-June 2012. The report reviews the growth trends in telecom services sector for the same period. It has been compiled on the basis of information furnished by the telecom service providers.

According to the report, the total number of telecom subscribers in the country (wireless and wireline) as on end June 2012 stands at 965.52 million as against 951.34 million at end of March 2012, registering a growth of 1.49 per cent over the previous quarter as against 2.68 per cent in the quarter ended March 2012. This reflects year-on-year (Y-O-Y) growth of 8.98 per cent over the same quarter of last year. The overall teledensity in India has reached 79.58 as on June 30, 2012.

Telecom subscription in urban areas has grown from 620.53 million at the end of March 2012 to 621.76 million at the end of June 2012. However, urban teledensity has declined, from 169.55 to 169.03. The rural telecom subscription has also increased from 330.82 million to 343.76 million in the same period, taking the rural teledensity from 39.22 to 40.66. The share of rural subscribers in the total telecom subscription in the country has increased from 34.77 per cent at the end of March 2012 to 35.60 per cent at the end of June 2012.

About 91.30 per cent of the total net additions have been in the rural areas, while as compared to 62.39 per cent in the previous quarter. The rural subscriptions have decreased from 4.91 per cent in March 2012 to 3.91 per cent in June 2012, while the urban subscriptions, too, declined from 1.53 per cent in March 2012 to 0.20 per cent in June 2012.

Wireline

The country?s wireline subscriber base continued to decline. It dropped from 32.17 million at the end of March 2012 to 31.43 million at the end of June 2012, bringing down the wireline teledensity from 2.66 per cent to 2.59 per cent for the quarter under review.

The rural subscriber base marked a Y-o-Y decline of 14.38 per cent, from 8.47 million at the end of June 2011 to 7.25 million at the end of June 2012. During the same period, the urban subscription recorded decline rate of 6.37 per cent.

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited continued to lead in the segment with a market share of 69.08 per cent and a subscriber base of 21.71 million. However, specifically for the quarter ended June 2012, its subscriber base decreased by about 3.37 per cent over the previous quarter. Tata Teleservices limited (TTSL) recorded the maximum net additions (0.017 million subscribers) during this quarter.

The total number of public call offices (PCOs) in the country at the end of June 2012 stood at 1.71 million as compared to 2.01 million at the end of March 2012, showing a reduction of 0.29 million PCOs. The year-on-year (Y-O-Y) decline over the same quarter of the last year has been 39.51 per cent.

The number of village public telephones has increased marginally to 584,020 at the end of June 2012 as against 583,718 at the end of March 2012. Currently, 98.36 per cent of the total 5,93,731 inhabited villages in the country (as per the 2001 census) are connected.

Wireless

With 14.92 million net additions during the quarter the wireless segment continued to follow an upward trajectory, though the net additions have seen a significant fall over the previous quarter.

The total wireless (GSM + CDMA) subscriber base however has registered a 1.62 per cent growth over the previous quarter and has increased from 919.17 million at the end of March 2012 to 934.09 million at the end of June 2012. The Y-O-Y growth over the same quarter of last year has been 9.67 per cent. Wireless teledensity has increased from 76.00 to 76.99 in the same quarter.

GSM services continued to dominate the wireless market. The GSM subscriber base stood at 831.86 million, accounting for 89.06 per cent of the total wireless subscriber market. The CDMA segment had a total of 102.24 million subscribers and a market share of 10.94 per cent.

Bharti Airtel, with a subscriber base of 187.30 million, had the highest share in the wireless market. The company also led the wireless market with 20.05 per cent market share. It is followed by Reliance Communications (RCOM) with 154.60 million.

Amongst CDMA operators, RCOM maintained its lead position with a subscriber base of 56.73 million and 55.49 per cent market share. However, in terms of net additions during the quarter, Sistema Shyam Teleservices Limited (SSTL) continued to add the highest number of subscribers – about 0.75 million.

Mobile ARPUs

Stiff competition in the market took its toll on the average revenue per user (ARPUs) of both GSM and CDMA operators. The monthly ARPU of GSM players declined by 1.94, from Rs 97 in March 2012 to Rs 95 in the quarter ended June 2012. Year on year, the ARPU of GSM operators have decreased by 2.11 per cent over the corresponding quarter of 2011. The monthly ARPU for CDMA mobile services has also registered a decline of 0.50 per cent, from Rs 75.3 in the quarter ended March 2012 to Rs 74.9 in the quarter ended June 2012.

Mobile usage pattern

In spite of cheaper call rates and innovative tariff plans, the monthly minutes of usage (MoU) remained at the same level for GSM services and decreased for CDMA services over the previous quarter. GSM MoU stood at 346 and for CDMA subscribers, the monthly MoUs per subscriber fell from 229.3 in the quarter ended March 2012 to 228.6 in the quarter ended June 2012, a decline of 0.31 per cent.

Wireless quality of service

During the period under review, the performance of wireless service providers has deteriorated with respect to the number of worst affected base transceiver stations due to downtime, congestion in paging channels, call drop rate, metering and billing credibility for post-paid and prepaid services, the percentage of requests for termination or closure of service complied within seven days and the percentage of calls answered by the operators within 60 sec.

The performance of wireless service providers improved during the quarter with regards to parameters such as TCH congestion, the worst affected cells having more than 3 per cent TCH drop (call drop) rate, the time taken to refund deposits after closures, point of interconnection congestion and the accessibility of the operators? call centre or customer care number.

Internet and broadband

The number of internet subscribers increased from 22.86 million at the end of March 2012 to 23.01 million at the end of June 2012, registering a quarterly growth of 0.66 per cent. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) holds 54.07 per cent of the market share with internet subscriber base of 12.44 million at the end of June 2012, followed by Reliance Communications Infrastructure Limited (3.58 million) followed by MTNL ((2.57 million).  The 10 leading internet service providers together accounted for 94.72 per cent of the subscriber base.

The share of broadband in the total internet subscriber base increased from 60.4 per cent to 63.31 per cent. The total number of broadband subscribers increased from 13.81 million to 14.57 million, registering a quarterly growth of 5.49 per cent and a year-on-year growth of 17.97 per cent. Digital subscriber line was the preferred broadband technology, which was used by over 82.93 per cent of subscribers.