Airtel was leading with maximum new subscriber additions in June 2016- TRAI

The total mobile subscriber base in the country has marginally grown to 1.035 billion, with Bharti Airtel leading the GSM subscriber addition for the month of June 2016. According to latest subscription data shared by TRAI, overall 1.36 million new mobile subscribers were added during the month. Top operator Bharti Airtel added 1.4 million new users, followed by BSNL (1.3 million) and Vodafone (0.70 million users) in the month.

Idea Cellular and Aircel were the two operators who have added significantly more customers. The two companies added close to 0.68 million new customers each on their network. Low tariff operator, Telenor continues to perform bad on account of voice customers moving to data centric network, this made an impact on the voice based operator. The company added only 32,256 new customers in 6 circles where they operate.

State run operator MTNL added only 8,696 new wireless customers in two metro markets. Other telcos including RCom, Tata, MTS and Quadrant jointly lost 2.8 million of customers. Rcom alone lost 2.65 million customers, mainly CDMA customers who have switched to operators like Airtel and Vodafone as the company was shutting down CDMA networks.

Tata Docomo lost around 0.13 million customers mainly because of negative addition in circles like Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, UP East, UP West and Tamil Nadu. Sistema led MTS which has already signed a deal with RCom to merge their business lost subscribers in almost all circles as they have already shut down company stores and distribution points. The company lost 56812 customers in those regions.

Operator wise latest subscription data:

Bharti Airtel:

• Added 14,00,397 new subscribers, taking the total subscriber base to 255.73 million.

• Most of the new additions are in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Jammu and Kashmir, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Rajasthan circles.

• Average VLR rate stands at 96.88 percent.

• Data growth in 3G, 4G circles and majority of MNP requests helped Airtel to add maximum new customers.

Vodafone India:

• Second largest operator added 0.7 million customers to take its mobile user base to 199.38 million

• Just steps away from crossing 200 million subscriber mark in the country.

• Average VLR rate now stands at 95.08 percent.

• The company performed better in Delhi and West Bengal while it lost customers in Rajasthan, UP West and Orissa circles.

Idea Cellular:

• Idea’s user base rose to 176.23 million with addition of 0.68 million new users.

• The company performed well in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Tamilnadu and UP West circles.

• Lost significantly large number of customers in Bihar and UP East and Rajasthan.

• Average VLR rate for the month was 103.96 percent, because of large number of inroamers on their network in 3G circles.

BSNL:

• State-run BSNL had the second highest addition of 1.3 million customers, taking its total mobile user base to 89.54 million.

• The company added majority of new additions in markets like Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

• Posted negative growth only in Karnataka.

• Though the active figures for the company are lower than private operators and for June, the company had VLR rate of 70 percent.

Aircel:

• Aircel added 0.67 million new wireless subscribers, taking its total mobile customer base to 88.93 million.

• The company posted positive figures in every operating circle while it added the highest number of new customers in North East region where it upgraded its network recently and gained huge growth in data business.

• However, it has close to 90 million customers, but its active customers are close to 63 – 65 million. Average VLR rate was 72 percent for the period.

RCom:

• After losing 2.65 million mobile users, RCom now has 98.70 million cellular customers on its network.

• Subscriber decline due to CDMA shutdown and MNP port out requests made by CDMA customers.

• Active customer base falls to close to 70 million, mostly due to high data tariff and less attractive voice offers. VLR rate for the company was at 72.50 percent in June.

Tata:

• Tata Docomo now has nearly 59 million customers after consecutively losing out customers since last few months.

• Active customers for the company also decreasing day by day and it currently has nearly 50 million active customers.

Telenor:

• The inadequate data network is the key hurdle for the unit and voice customers and revenue are slipping each month. The operator now has 53 million customers, out of which only 73.86 % customers are active.