India Telecom Market added Record 20m Subs in March 2010

Indian telecom market is continuously making the headlines. Either its because of the record 3G auction or the addition of new subscribers. Indian cellular market continued to add subscribers at a record rate in March, with telecom regulator Trai reporting 20.3 million new additions. Total subscribers reached 584.3 million, an increase of 3.6% from February. Wireless teledensity reached 49.6%, Trai said. Vodafone Essar captured the largest share of the net additions – 17.9% – followed by Reliance with 14.8% and Bharti Airtel with 14.7%.

According to Trai report:

Total Telephone subscriber base reaches 621.28 Million
Wireless subscription reaches 584.32 Million
Wireline subscription remains at 36.96 Million
20.31 Million new additions in wireless
Overall Tele-density reaches 52.74
Broadband subscription is 8.75 million

Airtel continued to be the market leader overall, serving over one fifth of the nation’s total subscribers. Reliance and Vodafone are vying for second place, with Reliance currently holding a slight lead with 17.5% against Vodafone’s 17.3%. The wireline segment remained flat at just under 40 million subscribers, with state-owned operators BSNL and MTNL counting as customers a combined 84.8% of these. Wireline teledensity stands at just 3.1%, and the nation has just 8.75 million broadband subscribers.