NEW DELHI: India's total telecom subscriber base touched 429.72 million for the quarter ending March taking the teledensity up to 36.98 the Trai
said on Monday. This is against 384.79 million for the quarter ending December 2008, a 11.68% increase. Wireless subscribers increased to 391.76 million (346.89 million) while wireline subscribers increased to 37.96 million (37.90 million).
Rural wireline subscribers decreased by 0.93% to 10.58 million (10.68 million) while in contrast, rural wireless subscribers grew 17.77% to 109.71 million (93.15 million).
The number of Public Call Offices (PCOs) also increased by 3.68% to 6.20 million (5.98 million). In the GSM segment, the all India blended ARPU per month decreased 6.82% from Rs 220 in December 2008 to Rs 205 in March 2009. ARPU for postpaid services declined 2.8% to Rs 543 (Rs 559) and 6% for prepaid services to Rs 181 (Rs 192).
For CDMA, the all India monthly blended ARPU dropped to Rs 99 (Rs 111). The huge difference between postpaid and prepaid ARPU noticed in the last quarter remains valid for the current quarter as well in the CDMA market. Postpaid ARPU was 5 times that of prepaid ARPU, which could be attributed to declining importance of processing fee on recharge coupon/voucher purchased by prepaid subscribers. Internet wireline subscribers grew 5.30% to 13.54 million (12.85 million) while broadband subscribers (with a download speed of 256 Kbps or more) grew 12.68% to 6.22 million.
