Telecom Monthly Update – January 2010

TTL yet again emerged as the top operator in terms of monthly additions in Jan’ 10 as it netted ~3mn new users, down 10.6% mom. India added almost 20mn new SIM users, up 4% on monthly basis led by Idea (up 38.8%) and BSNL (up 8.1%). However, with multi SIM usage being a widespread phenomenon, subscriber addition numbers no longer provide the true tele density picture. Aircel garnered over 2mn subscribers, only the second time ever while new entrant Uninor netted 1.3mn in its second month of operation. Interestingly, Idea’s monthly additions topped 1mn in Mar’ 08 while Uninor began operations with ~1.2mn subscribers. This would be a key validation, in our view, of the dual SIM trend as customers use the second operator (usually a newcomer) to take advantage of the tariff differential. However, the commoditized nature of voice tariffs implies such an arbitrage may now have been considerably reduced. Bharti and Rcom monthly additions remained steady at about 2.8mn.