Total Broadband subscriber base in India has gone up by more than 14 % in the last one year with nearly 15 million people subscribing to services from more than 150 Internet service providers in the country, according to new data released by India’s telecom regulator.
Broadband has increased from 14.68 million at the end of September 2012 to 14.81 million at the end of October 2012. Broadband penetration is the lowest among countries in the Asia Pacific region.
The top five service providers by market share were state owned BSNL, private player Bharti Airtel, MTNL, Hathway and Tikona, according to data till October 2012 released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).
Number of telephone subscribers in India decreased to 935.18 million in October, 2012 from 937.70 million in September 2012, with negative growth of -0.27%. The share of urban subscribers has declined to 63.17% from 63.53% whereas share of rural subscribers has increased to 36.83% in the month of October 2012. The overall Teledensity in India reached 76.75 at the end of October, 2012 from 77.04 in September.
Total wireless subscriber base decreased from 906.62 million in September 2012 to 904.23 million at the end of October 2012, showing a negative monthly growth of -0.26%. This decline is due to large scale disconnections by some of the major service providers.
Private operators hold 88.36% of the wireless market share (based on subscriber base), while state owned operators – BSNL and MTNL hold only 11.64% market share.
By the end of October 2012, about 75.14 million subscribers have submitted their requests to different service providers to port their mobile number to another service provider.