SMS Usage and ARPU slides – Telecom Industry Qtrly Report
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TRAI has released the quarterly report (ending June 2008) and here is a summary (useful data that you would need):
- 93 GSM and 44 CDMA Licensees
- Wireless subscriber base @ 286.87 million as on 30th June 2008 (as against 261.07 million subscribers in the previous quarter) – 25.80 million wireless subscribers added in the june qtr.
- 212.51 million GSM subscribers (74.08%) – prev qtr, 192.70 million
- 74.36 million CDMA subscribers (25.92%) at the end of June 2008, prev qtr : 68.37 million
- Teledensity: 28.33%
- The gross revenue of the sector has declined 1.3 % during the period.
- Private sector contributes ~69% of the revenue.
What’s interesting to note is that even though telcos are adding ~9mn subscribers a month, average revenue of the sector is declining.
ARPU/Usage Pattern (MoU)
- All India blended ARPU per month has declined by 9.3% from Rs. 264/- in March 2008 to Rs. 239/- in June 2008.
- All India blended ARPU (per month) for the quarter ending June 2008 is Rs.139/- as compared to Rs. 159/- for the quarter ending March 2008 registering a decrease of 12.57%.
- Total MOU per subscriber has increased from 493/-in March 2008 to 505/- in June 2008 – Outgoing MoU has increased
- For postpaid and prepaid, Metros continue to have lowest outgoing MOU per subscriber as compared to other circle categories.
SMS Usage
Outgoing SMS per subscriber continued to decline.
GSM: Rate of decline has doubled to 14.5% in the quarter under review from a 7% decline in the quarter ending March 2008.
CDMA: Rate of decline: 15.9%
Internet:
- 11.66 million Internet subscribers at the end of June 2008 as compared to 11.09 million at the end of March 2008 registering a growth of 5.09%. This growth rate is less than the growth rate of 7.08% at the end of March 2008.
- There are 75.97 million wireless data subscribers at the end of June 2008 (capable of accessing data services including internet through mobile handsets (GSM/ CDMA)).
- so essentially, 15% Internet enabled phone users fall under ’subscriber’ category!
- Broadband subscribers – 4.38 million at the end of June 2008 as compared to 3.87 million at the end of March 2008 (growth rate @ 13.18%)
- Out of total 4.38 million broadband subscribers, 3.72 million are DSL based; 0.42 million Cable Modem; 0.11 million Ethernet LAN; 0.045 million Fiber; 0.057 million Radio, Leased Line 0.018 million and 0.005 million use other technologies.
Misc
- 236 FM Radio stations in operation. (31 added in the qtr)
- 6 private DTH licensees
- 49 Community Radio Station licensee
Revenue:
Revenue Split for GSM:
- Rental : 23%
- Revenue from Call charges: 60.5%
- Revenue from SMS: 2.1%
- Roaming Revenue: 6.3%
- Other : 8.1%
Gross Revenue of the Telecom Service Sector for the Ist Quarter (April – June 2008) of the financial year 2008-09 was Rs.35311 Crores as against Rs.35770 Crores for the previous quarter - decrease of 1.30%.
Download the report
What’s your take on these numbers? Do they show a healthy sign?
Recommended Read: Mobile VAS Numbers (that you should know)
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About the author - Ashish Sinha is a Startup Mentor/Product Strategy Coach, and the founder/chief editor of pluGGd.in.
He has launched/managed couple of products (consumer as well as enterprise) in US and India, and now consults with startups/small businesses on their product/media strategy. He can be reached at: ashish (at) pluGGd.in [+91 98452 06443]
There are only 11.66% Indians that have internet?
Wow – thats a very low number than anticipated…
I meant 11.66 million. Not 11.66%.
It would be less than 1.66%… (counting more than 1 billion Indians…)
I think this number of 11.66 million is the number of internet connections in India. A large portion of internet users in country access internet through cyber cafes or such shared connections. Guess that explains the figure.
11.6 mn is the # of subscribers – while 75.97 is the number of users who are capable of accessing www via their handsets
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Ashish,
The way I read the numbers, there seem to be 11.66m fixed internet connections and 76m wireless internet connections.
The number of users are likely to be higher in case of fixed (because of connection sharing in cybercafes) and lower in case of wireless (because not everyone with a GPRS connection is an active user). Still, there should be at least 20-30m wireless internet users, which is comparable to the user numbers for fixed internet. And this number is growing much faster than the fixed user number.
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