Mobile Internet drives up subscriber base to 198 mn

Driven by growth in Internet usage through mobile phones, total Net subscriber base in the country increased by 20.38% to reach 198.39 million during the April-June quarter.

"Total number of Internet subscribers including Internet access by mobile device subscribers increased from 164.81 million at the end of March'13 to 198.39 million at the end of June'13, registering a quarterly growth of 20.37%," Trai said in its latest performance indicator report.

The total telecom subscriber base at the end of the quarter was 903.09 million, out of which 873.36 million were mobile subscribers.

Internet usage through mobile phones dominated the total subscriber base with about 89% share.

Total number of subscribers who accessed Internet by mobile devices stood at 176.5 million during the quarter ended June 2013.

Telecom major Bharti Airtel led Internet access through mobile phones with 26.16% market share, followed by Vodafone - 23.34%. Idea Cellular's share was 18.94% and Reliance Communications had 16.25% market share during the reported quarter.

Shares of rest of the players in mobile segment stood in single digit.

The number of Internet subscribers, except through access by mobile devices, increased from 21.61 million at the end of March to 21.89 million at the end of June, up 1.3%.

Broadband subscribers, excluding mobile devices, grew by 0.98% to 15.2 million at the end of June.

While number of narrow-band subscribers, where download speed is less than 256 kilobit per second, excluding access by mobile devices, increased to 6.69 million at the end of June 2013, registering a quarterly growth of 1.98%.

State-owned BSNL dominated the wireline Internet subscriber market with 60.13% share. RCom stood next to BSNL with 11.86% market share. For rest of the players in wireline segment, the share remained in single digit.