Telecom user base rises to 91 cr in Nov: Trai

Overall teledensity increased to 73.6% at the end of the month

The total number of telephone subscribers in the country rose marginally in November to 91.01 crore.

"The number of telephone subscribers in India increased from 904.56 million at the end of October, 2013 to 910.14 million at the end of November, 2013, thereby showing a monthly growth of 0.62%, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has said in its monthly data.

The share of urban subscribers declined to 60.06% whereas the volume of rural subscribers has increased to 39.94% in November, it said.

The overall teledensity increased to 73.69% at the end of the month. The wireless user base increased to 88.11 crore in November, from 87.54 crore in October.

"Private operators hold 88.43% of the wireless market share (based on subscriber base) whereas BSNL and MTNL, the two PSU operators, hold only 11.57% market share," Trai said.

Bharti Airtel is the segment leader with 22.31% market share, followed by Vodafone India (17.94%) and Idea Cellular (14.57%).

Airtel's user base stood at 19.65 crore at the end of November 30, with a net addition of 17.22 lakh users during the month.

Vodafone added 13.39 lakh new subscribers taking its user base to 15.80 crore, whereas Idea Cellular added 36,219 new users to take its base to 12.84 crore.

Reliance Communications added 3.03 lakh subscribers to take its base to 11.70 crore.

Aircel added 15.40 lakh users and its subscriber base stood at 6.52 crore, whereas Uninor added 36,089 new users to take its base to 3.23 crore.

CDMA operator Sistema Shyam Teleservices added 15,403 users and its base stood at 95.87 lakh.

Videocon also added 1.85 lakh users to take its base to 36.70 lakh. State run BSNL and MTNL added 4.36 lakh and 5,579 new users and their user base stood at 9.83 crore and 35.81 lakh, respectively.

"The wireline subscriber base declined from 29.08 million at the end of October, 2013 to 29.01 million at the end of November, 2013" Trai said.

According to the data reported by service providers, about 10.68 crore subscribers had submitted their requests for porting their mobile number by the end of November last year, the regulator added.