BSNL sees steady erosion in market share

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Chennai: Public sector telecom behemoth Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) continues to lose its market share month-after-month since January despite a sharp growth in the wireless segment during the period. As against its market share of 15.7% in January this year, BSNL has lost 2% market share to end October with a 13.7% pie of the wireless market.

From 15.7% in January, the market share of BSNL has eroded to 15.3% in April to 15% in May and subsequently came down to 13.9% in September to 13.7% in October this year.

On the other hand, Vodafone Essar, Airtel, Idea Cellular, and Aircel have increased their market share substantially during this ten-month period.

According to data compiled by IndiaInfoline, while Vodafone Essar’s market share has gone up marginally to 17.4% in October from 17% in January, Bharti Airtel has increased its market share to 24.6% from 23.6% in at the beginning of this year. Reliance Communications is more or less maintaining its market share at 17.7%.

Interestingly, with their limited network, both Idea Cellular and Aircel have shown a growth from 9% to 9.7% and from 4% to 4.5%, respectively during this perild.

BSNL’s share in incremental subscriber additions too came down sharply from around 14% to 18% in the first three months of 2008 to 7%. Vodafone, on the other hand, has seen its incremental subscriber additions growing from a low 14.6% in January to 20% in October while Idea Cellular’s share in incremental subscriber additions grown from 10.3% in January to 11.5% during October. Aircel too seen a sharp growth in its incremental additions month after month from 5.8% in January to 7.5%.

According to the data, wireless additions in October were the highest ever at 10.4 million. With mobile users crossing the 10 million mark for the third time, any slowdown in subscriber growth is not visible as yet. With metros and other major cities have almost saturated, the average realisation per user (ARPUs) is likely to remain under pressure as incremental growth would mostly come from the rural areas.