Telecom subscribers in India crosses 95-cr mark

Telecom subscriber base crossed the 95-crore mark in August, after a gap of more than two years, on the back of higher mobile users whose number touched 92.43 crore.

"The number of telephone subscribers in India increased from 946.4 million at the end of July, 2014 to 951.84 million at the end of August, 2014," Telecom Regulatory Authority of India said in a statement.

It was in March 2012 when Indian telecom subscriber base breached 95-crore mark. Total wireless subscriber base, which includes both mobile and internet dongle connections, increased to 924.32 million in August from 91.87 crore at the end of July.

Out of 92.43 crore mobile subscribers, 80.72 crore customers were found active in the reported month.

Share of private telecom operators has reached over 90 per cent while state-run companies BSNL and MTNL jointly accounted for 9.84 per cent market.

The landline services where telecom public sector unit dominate with 76.41 per cent market share, declined to 2.75 crore at the end of August from 2.76 crore connections in July with BSNL being biggest loser.

BSNL lost over 1.66 lakh landline customers during the reported month while MTNL gained most by adding over 9,000 landline customers.

In mobile phone service segment, Idea Cellular led the market in terms net addition of new subscriber. The company's net subscriber addition was over 17 lakh in the reported month, taking its total subscriber base to 14.18 crore from 14.01 crore in previous month.

Vodafone and Aircel followed Idea by with net additions of over 12 lakh and 9 lakh new customers. Telecom major Airtel's net addition stood at 7.69 lakh in August.

New telecom operator Uninor, which has operation in six circles out of 22 service areas, closely followed Airtel with a net addition of 7.06 lakh subscribers.

Tata Teleservices, Reliance Communications and Videocon's net subscriber additions were 4.61 lakh, 2.94 lakh and 2.22 lakh new subscribers during the reported month. CDMA operator MTS and state-run MTNL added 16,740 and 9,962 customers in August.

BSNL lost some mobile subscribers as well. The PSU's net subscriber loss during the month was over 50,000. Loop Mobile, whose licences are going to expire in November, lost over 2.35 lakh customers. The company was left with 17.26 lakh customers in August.

The number of number of broadband subscribers increased to 7.43 crore at the end of August from 7 crore at the end of July 2014.