Airtel is continuing to lead the Indian rural mobile subscriber base with 86.81 million in September 2013, according to TRAI data. Vodafone is in second position with 83.19 million.
The Aditya Birla group promoted Idea Cellular is in the third position with 69.16 million rural mobile customers, TRAI said.
BSNL, the state-run telecom operator, is in the fourth position with 39.80 million subscribers, TRAI data for September quarter showed.
Reliance Communications has 28.29 million rural mobile subscribers.
Aircel, a Maxis joint venture, has 23.25 million subscribers in rural India.
TRAI said Himachal Pradesh telecom circle has the highest Rural Teledensity of 75.59, followed by Tamil Nadu (69.45). Bihar continues to have the lowest Rural Teledensity of 27.51, followed by Madhya Pradesh (31.87).
According to TRAI, Idea Cellular continues to be the Service provider with highest proportion of rural subscribers (54.36 percent), followed by Vodafone (53.47 percent) to their total subscribers.
Out of the 899.86 million mobile subscribers, 356.68 million are in rural India. This means, 39.64 percent mobile users are in rural India.
TRAI said wireless (GSM+CDMA) subscriber base decreased 0.32 percent to 870.58 million in September 2013 from 873.36 million in June 2013.
India’s rural wireless subscribers decreased to 350.37 million in September from 351.10 million in June 2013.
TRAI said rural subscription declined 0.21 percent in September quarter against an increase of 2.51 percent in June quarter. Urban subscription declined 0.39 percent as compared with a decline of 0.58 percent in the previous quarter. The share of rural wireless subscription increased from 40.20 percent to 40.25 percent in total wireless subscription in this quarter.
Baburajan K
editor@telecomlead.com
