Updated facts and stats on Indian Telecom: Q1,2011

1. Mobile subscribers in India increased to 861.48 Million at the end of April 2011 from 846.32 Million at the end of March 2011.There are signs of the subscriber growth numbers slowing down over the highs of 22 million in November/December 2010.

2. Overall Tele-density in India reaches to 72.08% at the end of April,2011 from 70.43% of the previous month. The 70% tele-density point should now see a de-celeration of growth and the big numbers now would come for a higher CAPEX in establishing Distribution and Reach. The overall wireless Tele-density in India has reached 69.19%.

3. The overall Urban teledensity has increased from 157.32% to 159.63% and Rural teledensity increased from 33.79% to 34.47%.

4. Of the 15 Telcos operating in India, top 3 account for 50% of the market. Thus the viability of the later entrtants: S-Tel, Videocon, Uninor,Etisalat are questionable. Having invested a combined Rs.13000 crore, the ARPUs being generated by these networks are in the order of:
Uninor: Rs.39
Etisalat: Rs.26.75
S-tel: Rs.25.99
Videocon: Rs.8.5.
Such low ARPUs does not even cover the cost of acquiring a customer, which is Rs 300-400. These numbers foretell unviable operations and it will be very difficult for Telcos to recover their costs.
Ref:New telecom firms’ revenue streams turn into trickle

5. With Teledensity at 70% and Urban teledensity at 150% and 1 paise-per-sec call rates, it is increasingly clear that operators will have to leverage data services and VAS as revenue streams in the future over Voice.

6. More importantly it is the overall quality of service and VAS, content, eco-system partnerships that are going to be the ace for greater profit realization.

7. Costs are going to be chief concern in trying to access the rural 66% teledensity. There is a scope of innovation here in terms of distribution and services. Cracking the rural hinterland is hot going to happen by the same strokes that have been used so far most successfully to get to the 70% teledensity.

8. The Urban wireless teledensity has increased from 150.06 to 152.41 and Rural teledensity increased from 32.75 to 33.44.

8. Less than 5 million subscribers (1% subscribers) have opted for MNP in 6 months. What is evident is like elsewhere, GSM is the more preferred over CDMA as an option for Cellular subscribers.

10. Active wireless subscribers in VLR in April- 2011 is 583.22 million.30% of the subscribers in India are “ghosts” and that raises concern on the issue of 30% dead numbers.

11. Broadband subscription reaches to 12.01 Million in April-2011 from 11.87 Million in March-2011. Broadband refers to 256KBPS + speeds which by itself is a very low benchmark for data access as compared to other regions globally.41% of Internet connectivity in India is Broadband.

12. Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) for GSM service declined by 4.38%, from `110 in QE Sep-10 to `105 in QE Dec-10, with Y-O-Y decrease of 27%. MOU per subscriber for GSM service declined by 2.29%, from 368 in
QE Sep-10 to 360 in QE Dec-10. The Outgoing MOUs (174) declined by 1.61% and Incoming MOUs (186) by 2.92%.

13. ARPU for CDMA – full mobility service declined by 6.38%, from `73 in QE Sep-10 to `68 in QE Dec-10. ARPU for CDMA has declined by 17% on Y-O-Y basis. MOU per subscriber for CDMA-full mobility service declined by 4.73% from 283 in QE Sep-10 to 270 in QE Dec-10. The Outgoing MOUs (137) declined by 0.92% while Incoming MOUs (133) declined by 8.34%

14. The Vista of falling ARPUs and MOUs doesnot bode well for the Indian Telecom industry and places an onus on Telcos to integrate a larger basket of Telecom services to entice the customer to spend more.