The mobile subscriber base in India continues to tumble for the eighth consecutive month since July 2012. According to the latest figures released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) the total mobile user base in the country has decreased from 862.62 million in January 2013 to 861.66 million at the end of February 2013, registering a monthly growth of –0.11%.
 
But the positive sign is that the decline which is the result of disconnection of inactive mobile subscribers by the telecom service providers, has become gradually less. Not only this, the average revenue per use (ARPU) for wireless segment has witnessed an increase during the quarter ending December 2012.
 
The regulator said that the share of urban wireless subscribers has decreased from 61.31% to 60.50% where as the share of rural wireless subscribers has increased from 38.69% to 39.50%. The overall wireless Teledensity in India has reached 70.42.
 
Overall, the number of telephone subscribers in India decreased to 892.02 million at the end of ebruary, 2013 from 893.15 million at the end of January 2013, thereby showing a monthly growth rate of -0.13%.
 
The situation is no better on wireline front. The latest data released by TRAI show that landline subscriber base declined from 30.52 million at the end of January 2013 to 30.36 Million at the end of February 2013. Net reduction in wireline subscriber base was 0.16 million. The share of urban subscribers has increased from 77.54% to 77.65% where as share of rural subscribers has declined from 22.57% to 22.35%. The overall wireline Teledensity has marginally decreased from 2.50 in January 2013 to 2.48 in February 2013, with urban and rural Teledensity being 6.32 and 0.80 respectively. BSNL and MTNL, the two PSU operators hold 79.20% of the Wireline market share.
 
On MNP front, Rajasthan and Gujarat once gain emerged at the top with maximum number of coming from Rajasthan (8.25 million) followed by Gujarat (7.56 million). As per the data reported by the service providers, by the end of February 2013 about 86.83 million subscribers have submitted their requests to different service providers for porting their mobile number.
 
In MNP Zone-II (Southern & Eastern) maximum number of requests have been received in Karnataka (10.45 million) followed by Andhra Pradesh Service area (7.84million). In the month of February 2013, total number of subscribers who have submitted their request for MNP is 2.57 million.

For best mobile phone deals: http://shopping.telecomtiger.com/ 

For latest updates on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/TelecomTiger/429104257149437