Revenue of telcos from services fall 2.67% in Dec quarter

Adjusted gross revenue of telecom operators, earned from telecom services, declined by 2.67% at Rs 34,527.50 cr

The revenue of telecom operators from services declined by 2.67% in the quarter ended December 2012, despite increase in monthly consumer's spend on mobile phone usage by around 3%, according to Trai.

Adjusted gross revenue (AGR) of telecom operator, earned from telecom services, declined by 2.67% at Rs 34,527.50 crore, while the gross revenue (GR) decreased by 0.15% at Rs 52,858.39 crore on quarterly basis, the report said.

As far as consumer spending is concerned, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India said the  Monthly Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) for GSM service increased by 3.03% to Rs 98 in quarter ended December 2012 from Rs 95 in the previous quarter.

In its performance indicator report released on Monday, the telecom regulator also said on annual basis this was 2.25% increase in each GSM subscribers spend in a month.

In case of CDMA mobile users, they increased their spend by 8.84% on annual basis and 2.8% to Rs 80 in quarter ended December 2012 from Rs 78 in quarter ended September 2012.

However, the revenue of sector on annual basis improved during the quarter ended December 2012.

"The year-on-year (y-o-y) growth in GR and AGR over the same quarter in last year has been 7.08% and 1.31%, respectively," TRAI said.

The regulator found increase in Internet subscribers on quarterly basis increased by 5.49% to 25.33 million at the end of December 2012 quarter from 24.01 million in the September quarter.

Number of Broadband subscribers increased to 14.98 million at the end of December 2012 from 14.68 million at the end of September 2012, registering a quarterly growth of 2.02% and y-o-y growth of 12.23%, the report said.

The report shows that India lost around 4.2 crore telecom subscribers during the December quarter. The number of telephone subscribers declined to 89.55 crore at the end of December 2012 from 93.77 crore at the end of September 2012.

"This reflects y-o-y negative growth of 3.35% over the same quarter of last year," Trai said.