Telephone subscriber base in the country rose marginally in September to reach 95.76 crore, with a net addition of 57.7 lakh users during the month, sectoral regulator TRAI said today.
At August-end, the subscriber base stood at 95.18 crore.
“The number of telephone subscribers in India increased from 951.84 million at the end of August, 2014 to 957.61 million at the end of September, 2014, thereby showing a monthly growth rate of 0.61 per cent,” Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said.
The overall tele-density increased to 76.75 per cent at the end of September.
The wireless subscriber base increased to 93.02 crore at the end of September from 92.43 crore at the end of August whereas wireline base declined to 2.74 crore from 2.75 crore during the same period.
“As on September 30, 2014, the private access service providers held 90.31 per cent market share of the wireless subscribers whereas BSNL and MTNL, the two PSU access service providers, held only 9.69 per cent market share,” TRAI said.
Bharti Airtel added 10.22 lakh subscribers in September to take its base to 21.15 crore. Vodafone added 13.53 lakh users and its base has increased to 17.38 crore at the end of the month.
Idea Cellular added 17.25 subscribers to take its base to 14.35 crore.
Reliance Communications added 4.75 lakh users and its base at the end of September stood at 11.01 crore. Tata Teleservices and Aircel added 3.03 lakh and 9.56 lakh users respectively. The user base of the two companies stood at 6.42 crore and 7.58 crore respectively.
State-run BSNL lost 8.55 lakh users and its base has decreased to 8.67 crore at the end of September while PSU telecom operator MTNL added 13,703 subscribers to increase its base to 33.97 lakh.
Uninor added 9.41 lakh users during the month to take its base to 4.18 crore and Videocon added 1.07 lakh subscribers and its base at the end of September stood at 59.41 lakh.
CDMA operator Sistema Shyam Teleservices, which offers services under MTS brand name, lost 80,482 users and its base has reduced to 91.30 lakh.
Loop Mobile, whose licence will expire on November 29 after which it will not be able to offer services, lost 1.43 lakh subscribers. It base stood at 15.82 lakh at the end of September.
Broadband subscriber base increased to 7.57 crore at the end of September.
“In the month of September, 2014, a total of 3.26 million subscribers submitted their requests for MNP. With this, the cumulative MNP requests increased from 129.56 million at the end of August, 2014 to 132.81 million at the end of September, 2014,” TRAI said.