Telephone users base increases to 996.49 mn in March: TRAI

Total telephone subscribers' base rose by around 1 per cent to 996.49 million at the end of March on the back of growth in rural users, sectoral regulator TRAI said today.

"The number of telephone subscribers in India increased from 987.30 million at the end of February 2015 to 996.49 million at the end of March 2015, thereby showing a monthly growth rate of 0.93 per cent," the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said.

Urban subscription declined from 578.75 million to 577.18 million in the reported period whereas rural subscription increased from 408.55 million to 419.31 million.

Total wireless subscriber base increased to 969.89 million at the end of March from 960.58 million in February, registering a monthly growth rate of 0.97 per cent.

As on March 31, private operators held 91.68 per cent market share of the wireless subscribers whereas PSUs BSNL and MTNL held only 8.32 per cent market share.

The wireline subscriber base declined from 26.72 million at the end of February to 26.59 million in March. BSNL and MTNL held 75.07 per cent of the wireline market share.

"As per the reports received from services providers, the number of broadband subscribers increased from 97.37 million at the end of February 2015 to 99.20 million at the end of March 2015 with monthly growth rate of 1.88 per cent," TRAI said.

The subscriber base of Bharti Airtel stood at 226.01 million at the end of March whereas that of Vodafone was 183.80 million. Idea Cellular had 157.80 million subscribers, Reliance Communications had 109.47 million and Aircel had 81.39 million subscribers at the end of March.

BSNL had 77.22 million subscribers at the end of reported period and MTNL had 3.51 million. Uninor subscribers stood at 45.61 million at the end of March and Videocon had 7.13 million. Tata Teleservices had 66.31 million subscribers at the end of March.

TRAI said in March, a total of 3.84 million subscribers submitted their requests for mobile number portability (MNP).

"With this, the cumulative MNP requests increased from 150.01 million at the end of February 2015 to 153.85 million at the end of March 2015," TRAI added.

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