Telecom Operators Add 2.81 Million Subscribers in April: Trai

"The number of telephone subscribers in India increased from 933 million at the end of March, 2014 to 935.81 million at the end of April, 2014, thereby showing a monthly growth of 0.30 percent," Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) said in its report on subscription data for April 2014.

(Also see: 2.47 million MNP requests in February, total mobile subscribers at 931.95 million: Trai)

Subscribers in urban areas rose from 555.26 million in March, 2014 to 556.29 million in April, 2014, whereas those in rural areas increased from 377.73 million to 379.52 million during the same period.

Total wireless subscriber count rose by 0.32 percent from 904.51 million in March to 907.44 million at the end of April, 2014, it added.

Wireless subscription in urban areas increased to 533.87 million at the end of April from 532.73 million at the end of March, 2014, while the base in rural areas rose from 371.78 million to 373.58 million during the same period.

However, wireline subscribers numbers fell to 28.36 million in April from 28.49 million in March, 2014.

As of April this year, private operators held 89.36 percent of the wireless subscriber market share, while state operators BSNL and MTNL held only 10.64 percent, Trai said.

During April, Bharti Airtel added the most number of subscribers at 1,192,746 followed by Aircel (998,413), Telewings (968,871), Idea Cellular (770,045), Vodafone (731,272) and Videocon (295,427).

(Also see: Telecom subscriber base edges past 915 million; Vodafone key gainer)

Mobile Number Portability (MNP) requests rose from 117.01 million subscribers in March to 119.24 million at the end of April, 2014.

"In the month of April, 2014 alone 2.23 million requests have been made for MNP," Trai said.

Wireline subscriber base declined from 28.49 million at the end of March, 2014 to 28.36 Million at the end of April, 2014.

Broadband subscriber base increased by 1.45 percent to 61.74 million in April from 60.87 million at the end of March this year.

BSNL with 16.94 million has the largest number of broadband subscribers at the end of April, 2014, followed by Bharti Airtel (12.84 million), Idea (7.45 million), Vodafone (7.26 million) and Reliance Communications Group (7.15 million).