Mobile subscriber base rises by 20 million in March: TRAI

According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI’s) monthly subscriber figures, the Indian telecom industry has seen a growth of 3.6 per cent in the number of new mobile subscribers in March, over February. The mobile subscriber base has increased from about 564.02 million in February to about 584.32 million at the end of March with a mobile teledensity of 49.6.
Among telecom operators, Vodafone registered the maximum number of subscribers in March at 3.6 million, followed by Reliance Communications and Bharti Airtel at about 3 million each, Tata Teleservices at 2.8 million, BSNL at 2.7 million, Aircel at about 2 million and Idea Cellular at 1.7 million. Amongst the new entrants, Uninor added about 700,000 new subscribers in March, S Tel added 200,000 subscribers, Videocon added over 32,000 subscribers and Etisalat added only 354 subscribers.
As per the category of circles, Circle A registered 6.7 million new wireless subscribers in March, Circle B registered 8.7 million additions, Circle C added 3.2 million subscribers and the metros registered 1.7 million new subscribers.
The wireline subscriber base did not see any change in March over the previous month and remained at 36.96 million. BSNL and MTNL, the two public sector operators, hold 84.77 per cent of the wireline market share. The overall wireline teledensity is a little over 3 per cent.
According to TRAI, Circle A consists of Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu (including Chennai), Maharashtra and Goa. Circle B comprises Punjab, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Kerala, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh (East), Uttar Pradesh (West), West Bengal, Sikkim and Lakshadweep. Circle C comprises Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Assam, the North East, Jammu & Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh. The metros are Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata.