The average revenue per user, an indicator of revenues for telecom service providers, of GSM operators has declined, while that of CDMA operators is on the rise.

The tele-density in the country has increased to 18.23 per cent during the quarter ended March 31 compared with 17.16 per cent recorded during the comparable period of previous quarter, according to a study conducted by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.>

The all-India ARPU per month (both pre- and post-paid) for GSM stood at Rs 298 during the March 2007 quarter, a fall of 5.69 per cent, from Rs 316 in the December 2006 quarter, according to the quarterly performance indicators of telecom services for the March 2007 quarter.

The ARPU for GSM post-paid services declined by 3 per cent to Rs 613 in March 2007 from Rs 632 in December 2006, while pre-paid ARPUs fell by 4.58 per cent to Rs 250 from Rs 262.

On the contrary, the all-India ARPU for CDMA operators rose 3.06 per cent to Rs 202 during the quarter under review from Rs 196 recorded during the previous quarter.

The ARPU in the pre-paid segment rose to Rs 168 in March from Rs 159 recorded in December, even though the ARPU for post-paid declined to Rs 447 from Rs 456 a month.

The gross subscriber base (wired and wireless) crossed 200 million, while the tele-density in the March 2007 quarter reached 18.23 per cent.

The total number of subscribers rose 8.39 per cent to 205.86 million during the quarter under review from Rs 18.99 crore.