Telecom Operators regularly eliminate inactive subscribers, but pile up occurs, requiring one-off clean-up. COAI monthly subscriber addition numbers for August 2012 reported a decline in subscribers by 1%. Airtel, Vodafone and Idea too recorded 1.5-2.0m mom decline each in subscriber base versus net additions of 1-2m in the preceding six months. This implies estimated write-off of 2-3mn by these telcos during Aug-2012. The decline in subscriber base may also be driven constrained new subscriber acquisition perhaps to save on acquisition costs by reducing wasteful acquisitions.
Airtel lost 1.9mn subscribers against the addition of 1.5mn. Subscriber loss for Airtel was almost evenly distributed with 819,000 loss in 3G circles and 828,000 subscriber loss in non-3G circles. Biggest contributors for Airtel’s loss were Maharashtra (327,000) and Bihar (227,000) circles. Only 5 out of 22 circles reported positive subscriber addition (105,000). Airtel Subscriber base now stands at 186.90 Mn
Vodafone also reported a drop of 1.6mn subscribers against addition of 1.2mn. Vodafone SIM base now stands at 153.35 Mn
Idea Cellular lost 1.6mn subscribers with UP-East (368,000), Bihar (298,000) and UP-West (243,000) circles contributing the most. Drop in subscribers for Idea was more severe in its existing (1.5mn) circles than in new circles (135,000)
Idea’s Subs base is at 115.97 Mn
Uninor reported a loss of 2.4mn subscribers, which is the biggest drop so far. With this, net subscriber base for Uninor currently stands at 42mn.
Total GSM SIM Connections in India at the end of August-2012 is at 682.2 Mn