Airtel is bigger than the subscriber numbers reveal, it has one fourth of the active subscribers in the country. This has been revealed in the latest TRAI report of VLR (visitor location register) data, which tells the number of active subscriber.
At the second spot is Vodafone, which has moved Reliance Communication to number three spot, with 80.82 per cent active users and 19.23 per cent market share of active subscribers
Although RCom has managed to retain the number three spot, it has only 61.93 per cent active subscribers and a market share of 14.9 per cent.
Idea has the maximum percentage of active subscribers with 92.48 per cent subscribers of the total 95 million subscribers. Although this has not affected its ranking, the difference with RCom is merely 0.2 percent — Idea has 14.7 per cent market share. If idea manages to grow the same as this month it will push Reliance to number 4 spot this month itself.
While Idea, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone gain market share when only active subscribers are considered, all other operators loose thanks to poor active subscriber share in total subscriber figures.
BSNL, at 5th spot, has done so with a very poor record with just 52.69 percent active subscriber; it has got only 8.3 percent market share if we only consider active subscribers.
Another poor show has been from the Tata Teleservices, which has just 48.02 per cent active subscribers. Tata has also managed to retain the 6th spot but with 7.34 per cent market share compared to 10.68 per cent as per total subscriber figures.
Aircel, at No 7, has 53.91 per cent active subscribers only. It has market share of 6.81 percent when total subscriber numbers are considered.
Uninor has done better than Aircel and Tata with 58.05 percent active subscribers but in total market share of active subscriber of 2.55 per cent as against 3.09 percent otherwise.
MTS is at 9th spot with 48.79 per cent active subscribers.
MTNL is in deep trouble with just 35.17 per cent active subscribers, this means that they have only 0.32 per cent market share. To make the matters worse for the company, it has registered a negative growth in total subscriber base.
According to last month figures, India has 594.77 million active subscribers as compared to the 840.28 million total subscribers.