The Hindu : Mobile phone subscriber base may cross fixed line by year-end

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Mar 07, 2004

Business

Business

Mobile phone subscriber base may cross fixed line by year-end

By Sandeep Dikshit

NEW DELHI, MARCH 6. In an indication of the ongoing mobile revolution in the country, the number of mobile subscribers has exceeded the number of fixed subscribers in five cities including two metros. If this trend continues during the current year, the country will have more mobile subscribers than the fixed subscribers during 2004. The five cities where the mobile subscription base is higher are: Delhi, Mumbai, Chandigarh, Vadodra and Shimla.

The growth was fuelled by the downward trend of tariff for mobile services. The effective per minute airtime charge considering an average usage of 400 minutes/month have declined to 57 paise per minute from 67 paise. This trend was reversed in February after mobile phone companies hiked call charges on the plea that the inter-company settlement rates had been revised upward. This aspect has not been accommodated since the period under review covers the last quarter of 2003 ended December.

The fixed and mobile phone subscriber base grew by nearly 9 per cent at the end of the quarter ended December 2003 compared with the previous quarter ended September. The gross phone subscriber base crossed seven crores at the end of December 2003, up from 6.47 crores at the end of the previous quarter, according to figures released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). The growth on an annual basis (December 2002 to December 2003) is more than 39 per cent.

The subscribers of fixed service (fixed line and WLL-F) increased from 4.138 crores to 4.209 crores, a growth of 7.1 lakh subscribers. The growth was much faster in the case of mobile services (cellular and WLL-M) — from 2.303 crores to 2.844 crores — with 54 lakh new subscribers having opted for this service in the October-December quarter. This worked out to 23.5 per cent growth while it was negligible in the case of fixed subscribers.

The quarter also saw new mobile operators consolidating their positions. Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) had enrolled a total of 49.3 lakh subscribers while Reliance claimed 62.4 lakh subscribers.

The share of PSU operators v private operators for mobile services increased to 19:81 mainly due to staring showing by BSNL. Government companies also performed well as Internet Service Providers (ISPs). BSNL has become the country's largest ISP with a subscriber base of over 10 lakhs while Mahanagar Telephone Nigam is the second largest ISP with 6.92 lakh subscribers.

The share of PSUs in ISPs has increased to around 41 per cent of the total subscriber base.

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