Telecom operators' revenue from services declined by 2.67 per cent in the quarter ended December 2012, despite increase in monthly consumer's spend on mobile phone usage by around 3 per cent, according to a Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) report. A part of it can be attributed to disconnection of inactive subscribers by the telecom operators to save operating cost. Since last few quarters, the telecom operators have set on a trend to optimize operating cost by disconnecting inactive numbers.
Adjusted gross revenue (AGR) of telecom operators, earned from telecom services, declined by 2.67 per cent at Rs34,527.50 crore, while the gross revenue (GR) decreased by 0.15 per cent at Rs52,858.39 crore on quarterly basis, the report said.
However, the Monthly Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) for GSM service increased by 3.03 per cent to Rs98 in quarter ended December 2012 from Rs95 in the previous quarter. In case of CDMA, mobile users increased their spend 2.8 per cent to Rs80 in quarter ended December 2012 from Rs78 in quarter ended September 2012. Overall, the revenue of sector on annual basis improved during the quarter ended December 2012.
“The year-on-year (y-o-y) growth in GR and AGR over the same quarter in last year has been 7.08 per cent and 1.31 per cent, respectively,” the report analysed.
The report shows that India lost around 4.2 crore telecom subscribers during the December quarter. The number of telephone subscribers declined to 89.55 crore at the end of December 2012 from 93.77 crore at the end of September 2012. This reflects y-o-y negative growth of 3.35 per cent over the same quarter of last year.