Telecom user base rises to 89.80 cr in March: TRAI

The country's total telecom subscriber base increased marginally to 89.80 crore in March 2013 from 89.20 crore at the end of February 2013, according to data released by sectoral regulator TRAI.

"The number of telephone subscribers in India increased to 898.02 million at the end of March, 2013 from 892.02 million at the end of February 2013, thereby showing a monthly growth rate of 0.67%," Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said in the monthly subscriber data report.

Trai said the overall teledensity in the country increased to 73.32 at the end of March 2013 from 72.90 in the previous month.

The total wireless subscriber base increased from 86.16 crore in February 2013 to 86.78 crore at the end of March 2013, registering a monthly growth of 0.71%.

"Private operators hold 87.76% of the wireless market share whereas BSNL and MTNL, the two PSU operators hold only 12.24% market share," TRAI said.

Reliance Communications added the maximum of 30.26 lakh subscribers in the month to take its user base to 12.29 crore at the end of March 2013. It is followed by Vodafone, which added 24.66 lakh users to take its base to 15.23 crore.

Idea Cellular added 23.17 lakh new subscribers while market leader Bharti Airtel added 15.73 lakh users in March. The user base of the companies reached 12.16 crore and 18.81 crore, respectively.

State-run BSNL added 5.36 lakh new subscribers while MTNL lost 86,833 users during the same period.

Sistema Shyam Teleservices lost the maximum of 21.21 lakh users in the month followed by Aircel that lost 8 lakh subscribers and Tata Teleservices lost 5.73 lakh users.

Uninor also lost 87,174 users in March, 2013.

Wireline subscriber base declined from 3.03 crore at the end of February 2013 to 3.02 crore at the end of March 2013.

Mobile number portability requests increased from 8.68 crore subscribers at the end of February 2013 to 8.97 crore at the end of March 2013. In the month of March 2013 alone, 2.87 million requests have been made for MNP, TRAI added.