Indian mobile phone companies lost over 13.6 million customers in November last year, the sharpest decline in their monthly subscriber base so far, according to data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai). The total number of mobile phone subscribers fell to 890.60 million from 904.23 million in October.
All the operators, except for Reliance Communications and Loop, registered a loss in their subscriber base.
Tata Teleservices suffered the biggest decline in its mobile subscriber base losing 4.2 million customers, while Bharti Airtel and Vodafone India lost 2.8 million and 2.3 million. Idea Cellular lost more than 1.5 million subscribers and Aircel reported a drop of more than 1.4 million users.
Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), the lobby representing GSM operators, had said last month that telecom operators lost more than nine million customers in November.
Experts and industry executives said DoT’s new stringent customer verification drive that began on November 9 was mainly responsible for the steep fall in mobile subscriber base. In addition to this, they blamed the rising monthly churn rate and number portability for the drop.
Trai said there are about 200 million prepaid connections that are lying unused. Of these, about 55 million have not been used for more than six months. The regulator said it intends to put in place new guidelines to disconnect inactive mobile connections and issue them to new consumers. Experts said subscriber numbers could fall further due to the move.
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