The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has recently released the performance indicator report for the quarter October-December 2011. 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 December 2011 stands at 926.53 million as against 906.93 million at end of September 2011, registering a growth of 2.16 per cent over the previous quarter as against 2.36 per cent in the July-September 2011 quarter. This reflects year-on-year (Y-O-Y) growth of 17.69 per cent over the same quarter of last year. The overall teledensity in India has reached 76.86 as on December 31, 2011.

Telecom subscription in urban areas has grown from 601.72 million at the end of September 2011 to 611.19 million at the end of December 2011, taking the urban teledensity from 166.01 to 167.85. The rural telecom subscription has also increased from 305.51 million to 315.33 million in the same period, taking the rural teledensity from 36.40 to 37.48. The share of rural subscribers in the total telecom subscription in the country has increased from 33.69 per cent at the end of September 2011 to 34.03 per cent at the end of December 2011.

Nearly 49.87 per cent of the total net additions have been in the urban areas as compared to 64.37 per cent in the previous quarter. The rural subscriptions have increased from 2.50 per cent in September 2011 to 3.22 per cent in December 2011, while the urban subscriptions have declined from 2.29 per cent in September 2011 to 1.63 per cent in December 2011.

Wireline

The country?s wireline subscriber base continued to decline. It dropped from 33.31 million at the end of September 2011 to 32.69 million at the end of December 2011, bringing down the wireline teledensity from 2.77 per cent to 2.71 per cent for the quarter under review.

The rural subscriber base marked a Y-o-Y decline of 12.80 per cent, from 8.8 million at the end of December 2010 to 7.75 million at the end of December 2011. During the same period, the urban subscription recorded decline rate of 4.84 per cent.

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited continued to lead in the segment with a market share of 70.38 per cent and a subscriber base of 23 million. However, specifically for the quarter ended December 2011, its subscriber base decreased by about 2.85 per cent over the previous quarter. Tata Teleservices limited (TTSL) recorded the maximum net additions (0.039million subscribers) during this quarter. Circle-wise, Bihar, Delhi and Mumbai were the service areas that showed positive wireline growth.

The total number of public call offices (PCOs) in the country at the end of December 2011 stood at 2.37 million as compared to 2.59 million at the end of September 2011, showing a reduction of 0.22 million PCOs. The year-on-year (Y-O-Y) decline over the same quarter of the last year has been 31.71 per cent.

The number of village public telephones has increased marginally to 583,200 at the end of December 2011 as against 583,000 at the end of September 2011. Currently, 98.22 per cent of the total 593,731 inhabited villages in the country (as per the 2001 census) are connected.

Wireless

With 20.23 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 2.32per cent growth over the previous quarter and has increased from 873.61 million at the end of September 2011 to 893.84 million at the end of December 2011. The Y-O-Y growth over the same quarter of last year has been 18.83 per cent. Wireless teledensity has increased from 72.7 to 74.15 in the same quarter.

GSM services continued to dominate the wireless market. The GSM subscriber base stood at 785.97million, accounting for 87.93 per cent of the total wireless subscriber market. The CDMA segment had a total of 107.88 million subscribers and a market share of 12.07 per cent.

Bharti airtel, with a subscriber base of 175.65 million, had the highest share in the wireless market. The company also led the wireless market with 19.65 per cent market share. It is followed by Vodafone India with 147.75 million.

Amongst CDMA operators, Reliance Communications maintained its lead position with a subscriber base of 55.36 million and 51.32 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 1.74 million.

Mobile ARPUs

While stiff competition in the market continued to impact the ARPUs of telecom operators, still the monthly ARPU for GSM mobile services increased marginally by 2.93 per cent.  In the quarter ended September 2011 the ARPU of from Rs 93 increased to Rs 96 in the quarter ended December 2011. Year on year, the ARPU of GSM operators have decreased by 8.62 over the corresponding quarter of 2010. The monthly ARPU for CDMA mobile services has also registered an increase of 4.09 per cent, from Rs 71 in the quarter ended September2011 to Rs 73in the quarter ended December 2011.

Mobile usage pattern

In spite of cheaper call rates and innovative tariff plans, the monthly minutes of usage (MoU) has marginally increased for GSM services and decreased for CDMA services. GSM MoU upped by 0.53 per cent, from 331 in the quarter ended September 2011 to 332 in the quarter ended December 2011. For CDMA subscribers, the monthly MoUs per subscriber fell from 230in the quarter ended September2011 to 226 in the quarter ended December 2011, a decline of 1.98per cent.

Wireless quality of service

During the period under review, the performance of wireless service providers has deteriorated with respect to metering and billing credibility – post paid and pre paid services, resolution of billing / charging / validity complaints and fault incidences per 100 subscribers per month.

The performance of wireless service providers improved during the quarter with regards to parameters such as lowering of fault incidences, percentage of faults repaired within 3 days, mean time to repair  (MTTR), call completion rate (CCR), percentage of calls answered by the operators (voice to voice) within 60 seconds, percentage of requests for Termination / Closure of service complied within 7 days and the time taken for refund of deposits after closures.

Internet and broadband

The number of internet subscribers increased from 20.99million at the end of September 2011 to 22.39 million 20.33 million at the end of December 2011, registering a quarterly growth of 6.66per cent. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) holds 54.97per cent of the market share with internet subscriber base of 12.31 million at the end of December 2011 as against 11.95 million at the end of September 2011. Reliance Communications is at second position (3.58 million) followed by MTNL ((2.54 million).  The 10 leading internet service providers together accounted for 95.04 per cent of the subscriber base.

The share of broadband in the total internet subscriber base increased from 60.7per cent to 61.1per cent. The total number of broadband subscribers increased from 12.8 million to 13.35 million, registering a quarterly growth of 4.03 per cent and a year-on-year growth of 21.49 per cent. Digital subscriber line was the preferred broadband technology, which was used by over 85.12 per cent of subscribers.