Blitz Bureau
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) last week released the “Indian Telecom Services Performance Indicator Report” for the quarter ended December 31, 2024. This report provides a broad perspective of telecom services in India and presents the key parameters and growth trends for all telecom services including cable television, direct-to-home (DTH) services and radio broadcasting. The report is compiled mainly on the basis of information furnished by the service providers.
According to the report, the total number of Internet subscribers decreased from 971.50 million at the end of September 2024 to 970.16 million at the end of December 2024, registering a quarterly rate of decline 0.14 per cent. The number of wired internet subscribers stands at 41.21 million and the number of wireless internet subscribers is 928.96 million.
The internet subscriber base comprises 944.96 million broadband subscribers and 25.20 million narrowband subscribers.
The broadband Internet subscriber base increased by 0.06 per cent from 944.39 million at the end of September-24 to 944.96 million at the end of December-24. The narrowband Internet subscriber base decreased from 27.11 million at the end of September-24 to 25.20 million at the end of December-24.
Wireline subscribers increased from 36.93 million at the end of September-24 to 39.27 million at the end of December-24 with a quarterly rate of growth 6.32 per cent and, on Y-O-Y basis, wireline subscriptions also increased by 23.32 per cent at the end of quarter ended December-24.
Wireline tele-density increased from 2.63 per cent at the end of September-24 to 2.79 per cent at the end of December-24 with quarterly rate of growth 6.09 per cent.
Monthly Average Revenue per User (ARPU) for wireless service increased by 5.34 per cent, from Rs.172.57 in quarter ended September-24 to Rs.181.80 in quarter ended December-24. On Y-O-Y basis, monthly ARPU for wireless service increased by 19.17 per cent in this quarter.
The ARPU per month for the pre-paid segment is Rs.180.91 and for the post-paid segment is Rs.191.51 in Q.E. December-2024.
On an all-India average, the overall MOU per month Increased by 3.62 per cent from 974 in Q.E. September 2024 to 1009 in Q.E. December 2024.
Indian Telecom Services Performance Indicator Report for Oct-Dec 2024 shows dip in number of internet subscribers
Prepaid MOU per subscriber is 1053 and Postpaid MOU per subscriber per month is 526 in quarter ended December-24.
Gross Revenue (GR), Applicable Gross Revenue (ApGR) and Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) of Telecom Service Sector for the Q.E. December-24 has been Rs.96,390 Crore, Rs.92,342 crore and Rs.77,934 Crore respectively. GR increased by 5.43 per cent, ApGR increased by 4.65 per cent and AGR increased by 3.48 per cent in Q.E. December-24, as compared to previous quarter.
The Y-O-Y rate of growth in GR, ApGR and AGR in Q.E. December-24 over the same quarter in last year has been 14.07 per cent, 13.86 per cent and 14.89 per cent respectively.
Pass Through Charges increased from Rs.12,926 Crore in quarter ended September-24 to Rs.14,410 Crore in quarter ended December-24 with quarterly rate of growth by 11.48 per cent. The Y-O-Y rate of growth 7.12 per cent has been recorded in pass-through charges for quarter ended December-24.
The License Fee increased from Rs.6,023 Crore for the quarter ended September-24 to Rs.6,234 Crore for the quarter ended December-24. The quarterly and the Y-O-Y rates of growth in license fees are 3.50 per cent and 14.75 per cent respectively in this quarter.
Access services contributed 84.35 per cent of the total Adjusted Gross Revenue of telecom services. In Access services, Gross Revenue (GR), Applicable Gross Revenue (ApGR), Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR), License Fee, Spectrum Usage Charges (SUC) and Pass Through Charges increased by 4.87 per cent, 4.52 per cent, 4.30 per cent, 4.28 per cent, 4.62 per cent and 5.96 per cent respectively in quarter ended December-24.
The number of telephone subscribers in India decreased from 1,190.66 million at the end of September-24 to 1,189.92 million at the end of December-24, registering a rate of decline 0.06 per cent over the previous quarter. This reflects Year-On-Year (Y-O-Y) rate of decline 0.03 per cent over the same quarter of the last year. The overall Tele-density in India decreased from 84.69 per cent as in quarter ended September-24 to 84.45 per cent as in quarter ended December-24.
Trends in tele-density
Telephone subscribers in urban areas increased from 662.15 million at the end of September-24 to 662.72 million at the end of December-24 however Urban Tele-density decreased from 131.86 per cent to 131.37 per cent during the same period.
Rural telephone subscribers decreased from 528.51 million at the end of September-24 to 527.20 million at the end of December-24 and Rural Tele-density also decreased from 58.48 per cent to 58.29 per cent during the same period.
Out of the total subscription, the share of Rural subscription decreased from 44.39 per cent at the end of September-24 to 44.31 per cent at the end of December-24.
Telephone subscribers
With a net loss of 3.07 million subscribers during the quarter, the total wireless subscriber base decreased from 1153.72 million at the end of September-24 to 1150.66 million at the end of December-24, registering a rate of decline 0.27 per cent over the previous quarter. On Y-O-Y basis, wireless subscriptions decreased at the rate of 0.68 per cent during the year.
Wireless Tele-density decreased from 82.07 per cent at the end of September-24 to 81.67 per cent at the end of December-24 with quarterly rate of decline of 0.49 per cent.
During this quarter, the following parameters in terms of QoS benchmarks have been fully complied by wireline service providers: –
Point of Interconnection (POI) Congestion (90th percentile value) ≤ 0.5 per cent
During this quarter, list of QoS parameters which are fully complied by all the Access Service (Wireless) providers in all the LSAs: –
Application of adjustment to customer’s account within one week from the date of resolution of billing and charging complaints or rectification of faults or rectification of significant network outage, as applicable
A total of approximately 914 private satellite TV channels have been permitted by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) for uplinking only/downlinking only/both uplinking & downlinking.
As per the reporting done by broadcasters in pursuance of the Tariff Order dated 3rd March 2017, as amended, out of 904 permitted satellite TV channels which are available for downlinking in India, there are 362 satellite pay TV channels as on 31st December, 2024. Out of 362 pay channels, 258 are SD satellite pay TV channels and 104 are HD satellite pay TV channels.
During the quarter ended 31st December 2024, there were 4 pay DTH service providers in the country.
Pay DTH has attained total active subscriber base of around 58.22 million. This is in addition to the subscribers of the DD Free Dish (free DTH services of Doordarshan). The total active subscriber base has decreased from 59.91 million in September 2024 to 58.22 million in December 2024.
Apart from the radio channels operated by All India Radio – the public broadcaster, as per the data reported by FM Radio operators to TRAI, as on 31st December 2024, there are 388 operational private FM Radio channels in 113 cities operated by 36 private FM Radio operators. As compared to the previous quarter, there is no change in the number of operational private FM Radio channels, cities and FM Radio operators.
The advertisement revenue reported by FM Radio operators during the quarter ending 31st December 2024 in respect of 388 private FM Radio channels is Rs.500.11 crore as against Rs.423.52 crore in respect of 388 private FM Radio channels for the previous quarter.