India had 388.05 million rural telecom subscribers till September 2014 with Bharti Airtel leading with 25.11 percent share, ahead of Vodafone.
Vodafone had 23.67 percent share in rural telecom market with 91.86 million against Bharti Airtel’s 97.45 million, a recent TRAI data showed.
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Idea Cellular, an Aditya Birla group firm, continues to be the telecom service provider with highest proportion of rural subscribers (54.49 percent), followed by Vodafone (52.82 percent) to their total subscribers.
Idea Cellular had 20.16 percent share with 78.23 million rural telecom subscribers against BSNL’s 8.92 percent with 34.63 million.
The other leading telecom operators in rural India include: Reliance Communications with 27.39 million, Aircel 26.81 million, Tata Docomo 16.31 million, Uninor 13.19 million, MTS 2.12 million, said TRAI.
TRAI said the rural wireless subscribers grew 1.36 percent from 377.36 million in June 2014 to 382.50 million in September 2014.
Urban subscription increased at the rate of 1.89 percent as against the growth rate of 0.91 percent in the previous quarter. The share of rural wireless subscription decreased from 41.24 percent to 41.12 percent in total wireless subscription in this quarter.
Baburajan K
editor@telecomlead.com
