The Hindu Business Line : BSNL mobile subscribers are talking most

Airtel and Hutch may be leading the market share in terms of mobile subscriber base, but when it comes to usage, it is the state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd's subscribers who are doing the talking.

BSNL has the highest minutes of mobile usage across 10 circles, according to data collected by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. In contrast, Bharti has the highest share of usage across five circles while Hutch is leader in two circles only.

Reliance Communication is close to BSNL with a high share of usage across eight circles. For instance in Chennai, BSNL has 30 per cent market share of the total outgoing minutes of usage per month per subscriber and in Kerala, it has 41 per cent share of the outgoing minutes of use.

BSNL beat the private operators in Tamil Nadu, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh (West) and (East), Rajasthan, Orissa, Assam, North East and Jammu & Kashmir. Interestingly, BSNL is not the leader when it comes to subscriber base in some of these States.

In Tamil Nadu, Aircel has a 27 per cent share in terms of subscriber base compared to BSNL's 24 per cent though Aircel share in the minutes of usage is only 18 per cent against 39 per cent for BSNL. Analyst pointed out that since BSNL was reaching out to areas where no other operators have rolled out services yet, its subscribers tend to talk more as the BSNL mobile phone is the only medium of communication with the outside world.

ARPU on lower side

The high usage is, however, not getting reflected in the average revenue per user (ARPU) which is on the lower side for BSNL compared to the industry average.

"BSNL's tariffs are the lowest in the market and therefore despite high usage the ARPU is not impressive. The other reason is that BSNL does not have high usage in category A and B cities where private operators score. That's where the high end paying users reside," pointed out an analyst.

Bharti and Hutch have the highest usage in category A circles such as Delhi, Mumbai, Gujarat, Karnataka and Punjab.