TRAI released the official data regarding the mobile subscriber base in India and about the share of various telecom operators in the market. Let us firstly talk about the market share of the telecom operators functional in the country. As per the numbers, Airtel is the market leader with 22.31 percent share in November 2013 with Vodafone in second place with 17.94 percent and Idea Cellular with 14.57 percent in third place.
In terms of MNP the data reported by service providers by the end of NOV 2013 about 106.87 million subscribers have submitted their request to different service providers for porting their mobile numbers. Maximum number of request have been received from Rajasthan followed by Gujarat. In South maximum number of request came from Karnataka.
Airtel had about 19.65 crore subscribers at end of November after it added about 17.22 lakh subscribers to its user base. Vodafone in second place added about 13.39 lakh subscribers and its subscriber base stood at 15.80 crores. Idea added merely 36,219 subscribers taking its tally to 12.84 crores. About 2.09 million opted for Mobile Number Portability.
Reliance Communications has 13.28 percent of the market share, BSNL has 11.16 percent share which is largely due to the operator being the preferred choice in the PSU sector and the same are followed by Aircel 7.41 percent share, Tata Teleservices with 7.19 percent, Uninor with 3.67 percent, MTS India (Sistema Shyam Teleservices) has 1.09 percent and is the only CDMA operator functional now. Other minor players are Videocon with 0.42 percent, MTNL with 0.41 percent, Loop Mobile with 0.34 percent and Quadrant with the least 0.22 percent share.
Talking about the subscriber base in the country, the same increased from 875.48 million in October 2013 to 881.13 million by the time November 2013 ended. It showcased a growth of 0.65 percent which pretty much points towards the fact that there is still scope for growth in the telecom sector, as addition of about 6 lakh mobile subscribers every month is a decent number.
The wireless Teledensity in the country has increased from 70.96 percent to 71.34 percent, thus hinting towards a better penetration. The share of the urban sector in the wireless communication arena decreased from 59.65 percent to 59.45 percent which was complemented by an increase in the rural wireless subscriber base from 40.35 percent to 40.55 percent.
The total number of telephone subscribers in the country at the end of November shot to 910.14 million from the last month's 904.56 million, thus showcasing a growth of 0.62 percent. The overall Teledensity in the country increased to 73.69 percent in November 2013 from the 73.32 percent in October 2013.
The urban subscriber base declined from 60.26 percent in October 2013 to 60.06 percent with the rural subscriber base increasing to 39.94 percent from 39.74 percent. The telecom sector is all set to get a major revamp with the 2G auction taking place. The day 1 of the same has just come to a close and the end of the auction will showcase which way are we headed. Till then all we have to say is that Airtel is the market leader and the rural sector is growing in terms of telecommunications.
As a reader why you think there is maximum porting from Rajasthan and Karnataka is it due to network or any other reasons do let us know via comments
