The telephone subscriber base in India has seen another slump with total base decreasing to 897.02 million at the end of April, 2013 from 898.02 million at the end of March 2013, thereby showing a monthly growth rate of -0.11%.
According to the latest figures (pdf) from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the share of urban subscriber base slumped to 60.71% from 61.11% whereas share of rural subscribers has increased from 38.89% to 39.29% in the month of April 2013. With this, the overall teledensity in India slipped to 73.16 at the end of April, 2013 from 73.32 of the previous month.
In the wireless segment (GSM, CDMA and FWP), total wireless subscriber base decreased from 867.80 million in March 2013 to 867.02 million at the end of April 2013, registering a monthly growth of -0.09%.
According to the TRAI, this decline is largely due to disconnections by some of the service providers. The share of urban wireless subscribers has decreased from 60.53% to 60.11% where as share of rural wireless subscribers has increased from 39.47% to 39.89%. The overall wireless teledensity in India has reached 70.71 from 70.85 of previous month.
Private operators hold 88.02% of the wireless market share (based on subscriber base) whereas BSNL and MTNL, the two PSU operators, hold only 11.98% market share. The graphical representations of market shares and shares in net additions of all the service providers during the month of April.
As per the TRAI data, by the end of April 2013, about 91.73 million subscribers have submitted their requests to different service providers for porting their mobile number. In MNP Zone-I (Northern & Western India) maximum number of requests have been received in Rajasthan (8.80 million) followed by Gujarat (7.85 million) whereas in MNP Zone-II (Southern & Eastern) maximum number of requests have been received in Karnataka (10.90 million) followed by Andhra Pradesh Service area (8.30 million).
In the month of April 2013, total number of subscribers who have submitted their request for MNP is 2.03 million. The status of MNP requests in various service areas is given below
