TABLE-India's mobile user base falls 2.9 pct in Dec to 865 mln

Thu Feb 7, 2013 2:28pm IST



Feb 7 (Reuters) - India's mobile phone subscriber base
declined by a net 25.88 million, or 2.9 percent, in December to
864.72 million, the sixth straight monthly fall, due to a
slowdown in gross additions and as carriers continued to
disconnect inactive users in the world's second-biggest wireless
services market.
    By comparison, China, the world's biggest mobile phone
market, posted a 0.8 percent monthly increase in the number of
mobile subscribers to 1.11 billion in December. 
    Below is a table of mobile phone subscriptions as of
December, based on data released on Thursday by India's
telecommunications regulator. (  
 NAME                  CHANGE (MLN)     TOTAL USERS (MLN)     
 Bharti Airtel     -1.70           181.91        
 Vodafone India      -3.29           147.48         
 Reliance Comm    -15.59           118.53  
 Idea Cellular     -0.20           113.95             
 Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd     0.01            99.92             
 Tata Teleservices           -2.96            69.56          
 Aircel                      -1.98            63.35             
 Unitech Wireless             0.92            41.52             
 Sistema Shyam TeleServices  -0.79            14.88  
 NAME                      ADDITIONS     TOTAL USERS (MLN)  
 MTNL               -2,975           5.30  
 Videocon Tele    -371,953           3.64        
 Loop                         -6,506           3.00    
 Quadrant (Formerly HFCL)     63,989           1.70  
    * Active mobile subscriptions in December were 701.60
million, or about 81 percent of the total connections.
    * Mobile connections per 100 people, known as tele-density,
was at 70.82 as of December. Mobile tele-density in urban areas
was 143.48, compared with 39.04 in rural areas.  
    * By end-December, 80.06 million mobile subscribers had
opted to change their service provider, since India allowed
mobile number portability in January 2011. 
    * The number of broadband users rose to 14.98 million in
December from 14.88 million in the previous month. 
    * The number of fixed-phone line subscribers fell to 30.79
million in December from 30.87 million in the previous month.
    * Including fixed-phone lines, India had 895.51 million
phone users at the end of December, or a total tele-density of

 (Compiled by Devidutta Tripathy)

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