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The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) recently released the performance indicator report for telecom services for October-December 2008. The report indicates the growth trends in various telecom services and the performance of the companies over the quarter.

The total telecom subscriber base increased by 8.8 per cent during the quarter from 353.66 million as of endSeptember 2008 to 384.79 million as of end-December 2008. Teledensity stood at 33.23 per cent as of December.

Fixed line services
Fixed line services continued to witness a decline during the quarter under review. The subscriber base fell by 1.17 per cent to 37.9 million from 38.35 million. The incumbents, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL), together held 87.16 per cent market share in the fixed line segment as of December, while private operators held the remaining 12.84 per cent. Both BSNL and MTNL, however, continued to witness a spate of fixed line disconnections. The subscriber base of private operators increased marginally.

Public call offices
The number of public call offices (PCOs) in the country decreased by 265,471 to 5.98 million as of end-December 2008 from 6.24 million as of end-September 2008. Amongst operators, BSNL had the maximum number of PCOs at 1.89 million (31.62 per cent market share), followed by private operators which together had 3.87 million PCOs (64.74 per cent share) and MTNL with 217,903 PCOs (3.64 per cent share).

Village public telephones
During the quarter, 6,046 village public telephones (VPTs) were added in the country, taking the total to 539,448. The number of villages that did not have VPTs as of December 2008 was 54,037.

Wireless services
With 31.58 million subscriber additions, the wireless subscriber base grew at 10.02 per cent during the quarter and stood at 346.89 million as of end-December 2008.

Bharti Airtel maintained its position as the country's largest mobile operator with a subscriber base of 85.65 million, accounting for 24.69 per cent of the total wireless market. It was followed by Reliance Communications (RCOM) with 61.34 million subscribers, Vodafone Essar with 60.93 million subscribers and BSNL with 46.23 million subscribers. During the quarter under review, Vodafone Essar launched its services in the Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Bihar circles; Tata Teleservices Limited (TTSL) expanded its footprint to the Assam, Northeast and Jammu & Kashmir circles; and Idea Cellular started its services in the Bihar circle.

GSM services continued to dominate the wireless market. As of December 2008, GSM accounted for 74.44 per cent of the total wireless subscriber base with 258.23 million subscribers. The CDMA subscriber base stood at 88.66 million, signifying 25.56 per cent market share.

The GSM user base grew by 10.51 per cent during the quarter ended December 2008, as against 9.96 per cent in the quarter ended September 2008. However, the growth rate for CDMA during OctoberDecember 2008, at 8.61 per cent, was lower than 9.78 per cent in JulySeptember 2008.

In the GSM segment, Bharti Airtel was the leading operator with 85.65 million subscribers. It was followed by Vodafone Essar, BSNL and Idea Cellular with a user base of 60.93 million, 41.36 million and 34.21 million respectively.

RCOM was the largest CDMA operator with a user base of 50.99 million, followed by TTSL and BSNL which had 31.76 million and 4.87 million users.

Mobile ARPU
The all-India blended (prepaid and postpaid) average revenue per user (ARPU) for GSM operators decreased from Rs 221 in the quarter ended September 2008 to Rs 220 in the quarter ended December 2008. Similarly, the all-India ARPU for CDMA operators fell from Rs 122 to Rs 111 over the same period. Amongst circles, the lowest blended GSM ARPU was recorded in Category B circles at Rs 200. But this was higher than the corresponding figure of Rs 198 in the preceding quarter. The metro circles had the highest blended GSM ARPU at Rs 270, which, however, was lower than Rs 275 in July-September 2008.

The all-India GSM ARPU in the post-paid segment decreased by 4.2 per cent from Rs 584 in JulySeptember 2008 to Rs 559 in October-December 2008. Prepaid GSM ARPU, on the other hand, increased by 1.6 per cent from Rs 189 to Rs 192.

In the CDMA segment, there was a considerable gap between post-paid and prepaid ARPUs. The post-paid ARPU, at Rs 388, was 4.42 times the prepaid ARPU of Rs 88. This difference can be attributed to the declining share of processing fee in recharge coupons and vouchers purchased by prepaid subscribers.

Category B circles had the lowest blended CDMA ARPU of Rs 100 in the October-December quarter, lower than the preceding quarter's corresponding figure of Rs 111. The highest blended CDMA ARPU was in the metro circles (Rs 137), again lower than Rs 147 in the preceding quarter.

Mobile usage pattern
The minutes of usage (MoUs) per GSM subscriber decreased from 499 in the quarter ended September 2008 to 496 in the quarter ended December 2008. The MoUs for CDMA operators, however, increased from 332 minutes to 370 minutes over the same period.

Circle-wise, both outgoing and incoming MoUs per post-paid GSM subscriber were the highest in Category C circles at 827 and 600 minutes per month respectively. Category C circles also had the highest outgoing and incoming MoUs in the prepaid GSM segment at 221 and 263 minutes per month respectively.

In the CDMA segment too, Category C circles recorded the highest outgoing blended MoU at 212 minutes and incoming blended MoU at 259 minutes.

The all-India blended average subscriber outgo (rental as well as call charges) per minute for GSM operators in October-December 2008 fell marginally to Re 0.78 from Re 0.79 in the preceding quarter. In the CDMA segment, the all-India average subscriber outgo per minute registered a decline from Re 0.67 to Re 0.61 over the same period.

The ratio of incoming to outgoing minutes for GSM subscribers stood at 51:49 in the October-December 2008 quarter as against 52:48 in the preceding quarter.

Internet services
As of end-December 2008, 164 internet service providers (ISPs) were operational in the Indian telecom market. The internet subscriber base increased by 5.01 per cent over the quarter to 12.85 million from 12.24 million.

There was no change in the pecking order of ISPs in the October-December 2008 quarter. BSNL retained its top position with a subscriber base of 6.7 million. MTNL was in second position with a subscriber base of 2.02 million, and Bharti Airtel remained the third largest player with 1 million users. Reliance Communications Infrastructure Limited and Sify Technologies were the fourth and fifth largest ISPs with 940,000 and 470,000 users respectively.

Leased line connectivity
The number of leased line connections stood at 24,203 as of end-December 2008. This marked a growth of 0.52 per cent from 24,076 as of end-September 2008.

Broadband connectivity
The number of broadband subscribers was 5.52 million as of end-December 2008, registering a growth of 12.65 per cent as against 4.9 million in end-September 2008.

Internet MoU/ARPU
The average MoU per subscriber for dialup internet services was 214.23 minutes during the day (between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.) and 104.5 minutes at night (between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m.) as of December 2008.

The ARPU for dial-up internet services went up to Rs 221.97 as in December 2008 from Rs 213.08 as in September 2008, registering an increase of 4.17 per cent.

VSAT services
As of December 2008, there were nine operators providing very small aperture terminal (VSAT) services in India. The number of VSAT users increased by 599 from 94,436 in September 2008 to 95,035 in December 2008. The growth rate in the VSAT subscriber base in the October-December 2008 quarter was 0.63 per cent, down from 5.08 per cent in the previous quarter.

Hughes Communications India Limited (HCIL) was the market leader in the VSAT segment with 27,825 subscribers, followed by HCL Comnet with 25,634 subscribers and Bharti Airtel Bangalore with 25,068 subscribers. The subscriber bases of HCIL and ITI decreased by 6.22 per cent and 17.78 per cent respectively over the quarter, while BSNL registered the highest growth of 15.16 per cent.

Public mobile radio trunked service
The public mobile radio trunked service (PMRTS) subscriber base decreased from 34,846 as in September 2008 to 33,632 as in December 2008, registering a decline of 3.48 per cent.

Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi and Mumbai together accounted for 68 per cent share of the total PMRTS subscriber base. Delhi had the largest number of subscribers at 8,896, followed by Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai with 5,082, 4,783 and 4,110 users respectively.

Market revenue
The total revenue of telecom service providers in the October-December 2008 quarter was Rs 39.4 billion, up by 5.95 per cent from Rs 37.19 billion in the previous quarter. Bharti Airtel had the highest gross revenue at Rs 108.49 billion, followed by BSNL at Rs 90.27 billion. In terms of adjusted gross revenue (AGR) as well, Bharti Airtel led the field at Rs 78.58 billion, followed by BSNL's Rs 71.79 billion.

The share of public and private sector companies in the total AGR of all telecom service providers in the OctoberDecember 2008 quarter was 28.75 per cent and 71.25 per cent respectively. The corresponding figures in the preceding quarter were 31.23 per cent and 68.77 per cent respectively.