Our Correspondent
Kohima, Jan. 21 (EMN): Internet subscribers in India hit 776 million by September end of 2020, with 4% increase in broadband subscribers and decline in narrowband subscribers.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) revealed this in its Indian telecom services performance indicator report for quarter ending September 30, 2020 released on Thursday.
The report was prepared to provide a broad perspective and present key parameters and growth trends of the telecom services in India. It covered July 2020 to September 2020, and findings were compiled mainly based on information furnished by the service providers, informed PIB.
The total number of internet subscribers has increased from 749.07 million at the end of June 2020 to 776.45 million at the end of September 2020, registering a quarterly growth rate of 3.66%.
Out of 776.45 million internet subscribers, the number of wired internet subscribers is 24.36 million and number of wireless internet subscribers is 752.09 million. The internet subscribers consisted of broadband internet subscriber base of 726.32 million and narrowband internet subscriber base of 50.14 million, the report indicated.
In this, the broadband internet subscriber base increased by 4.02% from 698.23 million at the end of June 2020 to 726.32 million at the end of September 2020. However, the narrowband Internet subscriber base declined by 1.38% from 50.84 million at the end of June 2020 to 50.14 million at the end of September 2020.
The report also showed an increase in monthly average revenue per user (ARPU) for wireless service by 7.49%, from 00.12 in QE June 2020 to 06.87 in QE September 2020. On a year-over-years (Y-O-Y) basis, monthly ARPU for wireless service increased by 30.24% in this quarter.
On an all India average, the overall minutes of usage (MOU) per subscriber per month for wireless service increased by 2.37% from 744 in QE June 2020 to 761 in QE September 2020.
Prepaid MOU per subscriber per month increased from 748 in QE June 2020 to 765 in QE September 2020, Postpaid MOU per subscriber per month also increased from 648 in QE June 2020 to 680 in QE September 2020.
