Subscribers hang up on BSNL,MTNL

According to the latest data available with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India,around half of BSNL’s subscribers are inactive and in the case of MTNL,the figure is higher,at around 60%. Out of BSNL’s 98 million users,only 53.38% are active. Similarly,MTNL — which operates in Delhi and Mumbai – has a subscriber base of 5 million but of this,only 39.54% are active.

In the case of private sector operators like Bharti Airtel,Vodafone and Idea Cellular,the share of active subscribers is quite high. For instance,out of Bharti’s total user base of 188 million,90.46% are active subscribers. In Vodafone’s case,it is 89.16% (total user base: 154 million). Idea has the highest proportion of active users at 92.80% with its total subscriber base at 117 million.

What is worse is that BSNL,which has been in mobile operations since 2000 and is present in all the 22 circles in the country,has a lower share of active subscribers than new operators like Uninor,which entered the market only in 2009 and offers services in only 13 circles. MTNL’s record is worse. The company entered the mobile market in 1998 and is present in Delhi and Mumbai,which are the two most lucrative markets,but its share of active users is lower than all the new operators,some of which barely have services. Videocon,Sistema,Loop and HFCL,which are operators on the margins,have a higher share of active users than MTNL. Further,the decline in the active user base of the two state-run firms comes at a time when the industry average of active user base has improved.

Active subscribers are the ones who use their mobile phones regularly and in a way contribute to the revenues of the operators.

However,while counting the total subscriber base,even the number of inactive users is taken into account because a lot of customers in India subscribe to more than one SIM card basically to avail of some price discount offers. However,their usage of such SIM cards is not much and,therefore,such users are categorised as inactive.

For instance,out of the country’s total mobile subscriber base of 913.49 million,only 698.06 million are active ones. This is 76.42% of the total user base.

The recent trend among operators is to disconnect users who have not used their phones for more than two months. This saw Reliance Communications disconnect some 20 million users in July. The development has also seen the industry for the first time report negative growth in terms of subscribers in July followed by negative growth by the top three mobile firms in August.

Analysts said that if BSNL and MTNL start disconnecting subscribers who have not been using their phones for more than two months or so,there won’t be much of difference between their active and inactive user base.

Wrong numbers

* Around half of BSNL’s subscribers are inactive and in the case of MTNL,the figure is around 60%

* Out of BSNL’s 98 million users,only 53.38% are active. Only 39.54% of MTNL’s 5 million subscriber is active

* BSNL,in mobile ops since 2000,has a lower share of active subscribers than new operators like Uninor

* MTNL’s share of active users is lower than all the new operators,some of which barely have services