Telecom Operators' Gross Revenue Rose 9.5 Percent in October-December: Trai

Total gross revenue of telecom service providers increased by 9.54 percent to Rs. 63,955 crores in October-December, 2014, a report by telecom regulator Trai said.

The combined gross revenue of operators was at Rs. 58,385 crores in the same period of 2013, according to the Trai's performance indicator report.

The adjusted gross revenue (AGR), on which telecom operators pay revenue share as licence fee and spectrum charges to government, increased by 10.15 percent to Rs. 43,591 crores in the last quarter of 2014, from Rs. 39,575 reported in the last quarter of 2013.

The monthly average revenue per user (ARPU) of GSM operators like Airtel, Vodafone, Idea and Uninor increased by 5.8 percent year-on-year to Rs. 118 in reported period.

The ARPU for CDMA operators like MTS, Reliance Communications, Tata Teleservices increased by 4.8 percent year-on-year to Rs. 109.

The number of telephone subscribers in the country increased by 6.09 percent to 970.97 million in the reported quarter. The mobile or wireless subscriber base on yearly basis increased by 6.51 percent to 943.97 million at the end of December 2014.

The total number of Internet subscribers in the country was 267.39 million at the end of December 2014. This included 18.86 million wired Internet subscribers and 248.53 million wireless Internet subscribers, as per the report.

Subscribers of GSM and CDMA network combined consumed an average of 89.43 megabyte of Internet data per month through their mobile.

On CDMA network, average data consumed by a subscriber in a month stood at 251.93 MB while on GSM network it was 79.73 MB in the October-December 2014 period, as per the report.