Idear Cellular continues to be the mobile
service provider with highest proportion of rural subscribers to its total
subscribers.
This proportion has risen from 51.62
percent at the end of March 2011 to 52.76 percent at the end of June 2011,
according to TRAI, India’s telecom regulator.
Percentage of rural users to total
subscribers for Airtel, Vodafone and BSNL stand at 40.14 perent, 38.67 percent
and 35.38 percent respectively.
However, Bharti Airtel is the
leader in terms of rural market share. Airtel has a market share of 23.2
percent, while Vodafone and Idea Cellular have market share of 18.4 percent and
16.8 percent, respectively.
Himachal Pradesh has the highest rural
teledensity of 72.23, followed by Punjab (59.93), Kerala (55.01), Haryana
(54.57) and Tamil Nadu (Incl. Chennai) (51.65). Bihar has continues to have the
lowest rural teledensity of 23.43, followed by Madhya Pradesh (24.38) in the
first quarter of 2011.
About 60.14 percent of the total net
additions have been in Urban areas as compared to 61.96 percent in the previous
quarter. Both, urban and rural subscription recorded a decline in rate of
growth during the quarter.
Rural subscription growth rate declined
from 8.65 percent in March 2011 to 5.60 percent in QE June 2011, and urban
subscription declined from 6.93 percent in QE March 2011 to 4.23 percent in QE
June 2011.
Subscription in urban areas grew from
564.08 million at the end of March 2011 to 587.94 million at the end of June
2011, taking the urban teledensity from 157.32 to 163.13. Rural subscription
increased from 282.23 million to 298.05 million, and the rural teledensity
increased from 33.79 to 35.60. The share of rural subscribers has further
increased to 33.64 percent in total subscription from 33.35 percent at the end
of March 2011, according to TRAI.
The number of telephone subscribers in
India increased from 846.32 million in March 2011 to 885.99 million at the end
of June 2011, registering a sequential growth of 4.69 percent over the previous
quarter as against 7.50 percent during the QE March 2011. This reflects
year-on-year growth of 31.91 percent over the same quarter of last year.
The overall teledensity in India has reached 73.97 as on 30th June 2011.
By Telecomlead.com Team
