The total number of mobile subscribers continued to decline as of end-October to 1,143.63 million from 1,145.45 million at the end of September, a monthly decline of 0.16 per cent, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said in its monthly Telecom Subscription Data on Monday.
In September too, the number of mobile subscribers had declined for the first time in six months to 1,145.45 million compared to 1,149.11 million as of end-August.
Wireless subscription in urban areas decreased from 627.14 million as of end-September to 625.18 million at the end of October, while in rural areas it increased from 518.31 million to 518.45 million during the same period, it said adding that monthly growth rates of urban and rural wireless subscription were -0.31 per cent and 0.03 per cent, respectively.
Wireless tele-density in India decreased from 82.94 per cent as of end-September to 82.75 per cent as of end- October. The urban wireless tele-density decreased from 129.56 per cent to 128.96 per cent during the same period, the sector regulator said.
Rural tele-density too decreased from 57.79 per cent to 57.78 per cent during the period. The share of urban and rural wireless subscribers in total number of wireless subscribers was 54.67 per cent and 45.33 per cent respectively at the end of October.
Market share
The data released also said that as on October 31, the private access service providers held 90.24 per cent market share of the wireless subscribers whereas BSNL and MTNL, the two public sector unit access service providers, had a market share of only 9.76 per cent.
Among the private service providers, Reliance Jio held a market share of 36.85 per cent, followed by Bharti Airtel at 31.92 per cent and Vodafone-Idea at 21.48 per cent.
In terms of mobile number portability (MNP), during the month of October, a total of 11.81 million requests were received for MNP. The cumulative MNP requests increased from 748.11 million as of end-September to 759.92 million at the end of October, since the implementation of MNP in 2015, it added.
