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

According to the report, as of end-June 2012, the total number of telecom subscribers in the country (wireless and wireline) stood at 965.52 million. This reflects a quarter-on-quarter increase of 1.49 per cent and a year-on-year increase of 8.98 per cent. As on June 30, 2012, the country’s overall teledensity stood at 79.58 per cent.

The number of telecom subscribers in urban areas increased from 620.53 million at end-March 2012 to 621.76 million at end-June 2012. However, urban teledensity declined from 169.55 per cent to 169.03 per cent. Meanwhile, rural telecom subscription increased from 330.82 million to 343.76 million during the same period, taking the rural teledensity from 39.22 per cent to 40.66 per cent. The share of rural subscribers in the country’s total telecom subscriber base grew from 34.77 per cent at end-March 2012 to 35.6 per cent at end-June 2012.

About 91.3 per cent of the net subscriber additions were in rural areas as against 62.39 per cent in the previous quarter. The subscriber growth declined from 4.91 per cent in March 2012 to 3.91 per cent in June 2012 in rural areas, and from 1.53 per cent to 0.2 per cent in urban areas.

Wireline

The country’s wireline subscriber base continued to decline. It dropped from 32.17 million at end-March 2012 to 31.43 million at end-June 2012, leading to a decrease in wireline teledensity from 2.66 per cent to 2.59 per cent.

The rural subscriber base marked a year-on-year decline of 14.38 per cent, from 8.47 million at end-June 2011 to 7.25 million at the end of June 2012. During the same period, the urban subscriber base registered a decline of 6.37 per cent.

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

The total number of public call offices (PCOs) in the country stood at 1.71 million at end-June 2012 as compared to 2.01 million at end-March 2012. The segment registered a year-on-year decline of 39.51 per cent. Meanwhile, the number of village public telephones (VPTs) increased marginally to 584,020 at end-June 2012 as against 583,718 at end-March 2012. Currently, 98.36 per cent of the total 593,731 inhabited villages in the country (as per the 2001 census) have access to telecom facilities.

Wireless

Despite the significant decline in net additions over the previous quarter, the wireless segment continued to follow an upward trajectory with 14.92 million net subscriber additions during the quarter ended June 2012.

The total wireless (GSM + CDMA) subscriber base increased from 919.17 million at end-March 2012 to 934.09 million at end-June 2012, registering a 1.62 per cent growth. The total subscriber base witnessed a year-on-year growth of 9.67 per cent. Further, wireless teledensity increased from 76 per cent in March 2012 to 76.99 per cent in June 2012.

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 market. The CDMA segment, on the other hand, had a total of 102.24 million subscribers and a market share of 10.94 per cent.

Bharti Airtel had the highest share in the wireless market at 20.05 per cent with a subscriber base of 187.3 million, followed by Reliance Communications (RCOM) with 154.6 million subscribers.

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 led the market with about 0.75 million subscriber additions.

Mobile ARPUs

Stiff competition in the market took its toll on the ARPUs of both GSM and CDMA operators. The monthly ARPUs of GSM players declined by 1.94 per cent, from Rs 97 in the quarter ended March 2012 to Rs 95 in the quarter ended June 2012. The ARPUs of GSM operators witnessed a year-on-year decrease of 2.11 per cent. The monthly ARPUs for CDMA service providers also registered a decline of 0.5 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 (MoUs) remained unchanged for GSM services, while they decreased for CDMA services over the previous quarter. GSM MoUs stood at 346 while CDMA MoUs 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 deteriorated with respect to the number of worst-affected base transceiver stations due to downtime, congestion in paging channels, call drop rates, metering and billing credibility for post-paid and prepaid services, percentage of requests for termination or closure of service complied with within seven days, and the percentage of calls answered by operators within 60 seconds. However, the operators’ performance improved with regard to parameters such as traffic channel (TCH) congestion, worst-affected cells with over 3 per cent TCH drop (call drop) rate, time taken to refund deposits after closures, congestion at the point of interconnection, and accessibility to the operator’s call centre or customer care number.

Internet and broadband

The number of internet subscribers increased from 22.86 million at end-March 2012 to 23.01 million at end-June 2012, registering a quarterly growth of 0.66 per cent.

BSNL accounted for 54.07 per cent market share, with an internet subscriber base of 12.44 million at end-June 2012, followed by Reliance Communications Infrastructure Limited (3.58 million) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (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 increase of 5.49 per cent. It witnessed a year-on-year growth of 17.97 per cent. DSL was the preferred broadband technology and was used by over 82.93 per cent of subscribers.