Telecom service providers have added 44.21 million new subscribers in the quarter ended September 2009.
The average revenue per user (Arpu) for GSM operators declined by 11.3 per cent, from Rs 185 in quarter ended June to Rs 164 in quarter ended September. For CDMA operators, Arpu declined by 3.8 per cent, from Rs 92 in the June quarter to Rs 89 in the September quarter, according to the quarterly report released by the Telecom regulatory Authority of India (Trai).
The minutes of usage per subscriber for GSM operators continued to show a declining trend. It decreased 6.68 per cent, from 454 in the June quarter to 423 in the September quarter. The outgoing minutes of usage declined by 6.8 per cent and incoming by 6.5 per cent.
For CDMA operators, minutes of usage per subscriber fell by 9.8 per cent, from 342 in the June quarter to 308 in the September quarter. The outgoing usage declined by 9.2 per cent and incoming by 10.5 per cent.
The gross revenue of the operators has slipped marginally by 0.65 per cent during the period. Telecom operators have garnered a gross revenue of Rs 38,854.65 crore in Q2, slipping 0.65 per cent from the quarter a year ago.
The subscriber base grew 9.51 per cent during the period, to 509.03 million from 464.82 million in the quarter last year. The combined wireless subscriber base (GSM and CDMA) grew to 471.73 million from 427.3 million, while the wireline subscriber base slipped to 37.31 million in the period. The overall teledensity (connections per 100 people) reached 43.50 as on September 30.
