The fall in the number of telephone subscribers in India has continued in October too. It has come down to 935.18 million at the end of October, 2012 from 937.70 million at the end of September 2012, thereby registering a monthly growth rate of -0.27%.

The share of urban subscribers has declined to 63.17% from 63.53% whereas share of rural subscribers has increased to 36.83% in the month of October 2012. With this, the overall Teledensity in India reached 76.75 at the end of October, 2012 from 77.04 of the previous month.

 Subscription in the urban areas decreased from 595.69 million in September, 2012 to 590.73 million at the end of October, 2012. Subscription in rural areas increased from 342.01 million to 344.45 million during the same period. The monthly growth rate of urban and rural subscription is -0.83% and 0.71% respectively. The overall urban Teledensity has decreased from 161.13 to 159.52 and Rural Teledensity increased from 40.36 to 40.61.
 
Total subscriber base decreased from 906.62 million in September 2012 to 904.23 million at the end of October 2012, registering a monthly growth of -0.26%. This decline is due to large scale disconnections by some of the service providers. The share of urban wireless subscribers has decreased from 63.06 % to 62.68% where as share of rural wireless subscribers has increased from 36.94% to 37.32%. The overall wireless Teledensity in India has reached 74.21.

Wireless subscription in urban areas decreased from 571.70 million in September 2012 to 566.81 million at the end of Octoberber 2012. The wireless subscription in rural areas increased from 334.92 million to 337.42 million during the same period. The urban wireless Teledensity has decreased from 154.64 to 153.06 and rural Teledensity has increased from 39.52 to 39.78.

Wireline subscriber base declined from 31.08 million at the end of September 2012 to 30.95 million at the end of October 2012, Trai said.

Bharti Airtel recorded an addition of 491,570 new users, taking its user base to 186.4 million. It is followed by Vodafone with 480,336 new subscribers. It now has 153.14 million subscribers. 

BSNL and Idea Cellular added 357,148 and 239,348 new users to take their subscriber base to 99.99 million and 115.70 million respectively.

Tata Teleservices however lost 1.6 million subscribers reducing its user base to 76.74 million. It is planning to shut down operations in Jammu & Kashmir, North-East and Assam circles.

The subscriber base of Uninor and Reliance Communications declined by 1.1 million and 844,735 respectively. Videocon and Loop lost 59,151 and 47,379 wireless customers respectively.