Telecom subscriber base declines in Oct, loses 2.5m users

The country's telecom subscriber base fell by over 2.5 million to 935.18 million users in October compared to 937.70 million a month ago. "The number of telephone subscribers in India decreased to 935.18 million at the end of October, 2012 from 937.70 million at the end of September 2012, thereby registering a monthly growth rate of - 0.27 per cent," Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said in a statement.

Total wireless subscriber or mobile phone user base decreased by 0.26 per cent to 904.23 million at the end of October 2012 from 906.62 million in September 2012. TRAI attributed the decline in subscriber base "to large scale disconnection by some of the service providers." Market leaderBharti Airtel  added 491,570 new users, the maximum among players to take its user base to 186.41 million followed by Vodafone with 480,336 new subscribers, taking its base to 153.14 million.

BSNL and Idea Cellular  added 357,148 and 239,348 new users to take their subscriber base to 99.99 million and 115.70 million respectively. The highest dip of over 1.6 million was in the subscriber base of Tata Teleservices reducing its user base to 76.74 million. The company has already announced its plans to shut down operations in Jammu & Kashmir, North-East and Assam circles. Tata Tele was followed by Uninor and Reliance Communications whose subscriber base declined by 1.1 million and 844,735 respectively taking their wireless customer base to 41.03 million and 134 million respectively. Videocon and Loop lost 59,151 and 47,379 wireless customers respectively.

Wireline subscriber base declined from 31.08 million at the end of September 2012 to 30.95 million at the end of October 2012, TRAI said. The TRAI said during October "share of urban wireless subscribers has decreased from  63.06 per cent to 62.68 per cent whereas share of rural wireless subscribers has increased from 36.94 per cent to 37.32 per cent," TRAI said. It added the overall wireless teledensity in the country has reached 74.21 at the end of October 2012. Total broadband subscriber base has increased from 14.68 million at the end of September 2012 to 14.81 million at the end of October 2012, a monthly growth of 0.89 per cent.