July 2009: 14.38M Mobile Connections Added In India; Landlines Sink; Broadband At 6.8M

From http://www.medianama.com/2009/08/223-july-2009-1438m-mobile-connections-added-in-india-landlines-sink-broadband-at-68m/ on August 24, 2009

By Preethi J

News of the reviving economy is reflected in the telecom sector in the month of July, which saw an addition of 14.38 million wireless connections compared to the 12.03 million in June, 2009. The total number of telephone connections in the country was 479.07 million at the end of July 2009.

• Teledensity rose from 39.86% in June to 41.08%.
• Wireless teledensity is up from 36.64% to 37.87%
• Total wireless connections rose 3.6% to 441.66 million
• Broadband connections swelled from 6.62 million in June 2009 to 6.8 million.

BSNL Loses 0.16M Landline Users; Bharti Adds 33,940

This segment continues to see churn with BSNL’s customers choosing the wireless route and disconnecting their landlines – the two oldest landline providers BSNL and MTNL lost a total of 0.17 million subscribers in July after losing 0.19 million in June 2009. MTNL lost 8181 to reach 3.54 million connections. BSNL lost 166,519 landline connections and now has 28.62 million; it accounts for 76.5% of the country’s landline userbase and will continue to be hit by negative growth even as private service providers such as Bharti Airtel and RCOM add users by bundling the landlines with other necessary services such as broadband and IPTV.

• Total landline connections in India – 37.41 million
• Wireline teledensity has reduced marginally to 3.21%

Downloads: TRAI Data (PDF)

Other operators offering landlines and their user base:

• Bharti Airtel – 2.86 million
• Reliance Communications – 1.13 million
• Tata Teleservices (Indicom) – 967,554
• HFCL Infotel – 163,399
• Sistema Shyam (MTS) – 111,069

Spice Comm FY'09 net loss at Rs 1,015 cr – The Financial Express

via Spice Comm FY’09 net loss at Rs 1,015 cr – The Financial Express on The Financial Express, June 18, 2009

Mumbai: Telecom service provider Spice Communications reported a net loss of Rs 1,015.22 crore for the 15 months ended March 31, 2009, while it had a net profit of Rs 380.13 crore in the period ended December 2007.

The company’s net sales stood at Rs 1,580.47 crore for the period ended March 2009, against Rs 957.84 crore in the fiscal ended December 31, 2007, Spice Communications said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange.

During the financial year, the stake of Idea in the company stands at 41.09 per cent effective October 16, 2008, the filing added.

Shares of Spice Communications were trading at Rs 71.30, up 2.08 per cent on the BSE.