Telecom numbers continue to disappoint
Mobile subscriber addition has declined for the fourth consecutive month.
Telecom numbers continue to disappoint. Mobile subscriber addition has declined for the fourth consecutive month. Subscriber addition for June 2011 was 8.6 million compared to 9.5 million in May. June’s figure is almost half of the peak addition achieved in November 2010 when it touched 17 million subscribers.
Metros saw a sharp drop of 33% followed by C circles which fell 29% and B circles 16%. The only circle that posted strong growth was A circles which grew 23%.
As a result of continuous fall, companies have started tightening their belts. An HSBC report says the operators have put in place various practices, such as curtailing retailer commissions, introducing claw back commissions penalising the trade for adding non-revenue generating subscribers, putting caps on retailers’ monthly targets and broadening the retail base. These will, however, further slow down growth rates going forward.
As far as company specific growth is concerned, Bharti Airtel has added 2.1 million subscribers, while Vodafone & Idea have added 2 million and 1.3 million subscribers, respectively. Similarly, BSNL and Aircel have added around 0.8 and 0.9 million subscribers, respectively. Bharti Airtel continues to have the highest number of active subscribers of over 90%.
Older operator continues to grow faster than the newer ones. Roll-out of 3G services among other value adds will lead to the older players continuing to witness higher growth.
Among new operators, Uninor registered 0.9 million addition and others like Videocon, S Tel, Loop and Etisalat DB have added 0.07 million, 0.15 million, 0.01million and 0.05 million, respectively.Lack of new plans and cost-cutting measures imposed by various operators, telecom numbers are likely to remain subdued.