Airtel India has reported 50.631 million mobile Internet connections, up 8.69% quarter-on-quarter (QoQ), adding 4.07 million data connections in all. This is also a significant quarter for Airtel for another reason: VAS and messaging declined to 6.69% of total revenue during the quarter, from 8.24% last quarter; in comparison, data revenues accounted for 9.2% of total revenues, and this is the first quarter were Data has crossed VAS-and-messaging. This is undoubtedly initiated by the decline in VAS revenues due to TRAI's double confirmation regime, which also impacted Idea Cellular's VAS and messaging revenues. This impacted Airtel's non voice revenues, which declined to 16.54% of total revenues, from 17.35% of total revenues. Interestingly, Airtel added 2.828 million 2G connections (compared with 2.7 million last quarter), and 1.219 million 3G connections (compared with 0.4 million last quarter. So, is the tide turning - are more people opting for 3G now? We're not sure of how Airtel accounts for users that transition to 3G, but given that these are net adds, it is likely that they're shown as a decrease in the 2G data connections base, and an increase in 3G. The numbers: - 4.047 million mobile Internet connections added during the quarter, as compared to 3.09 million last quarter, and 2.81 million the quarter before. - 50.631 million mobile Internet connections, up 8.69% from 46.58 million last quarter. - 8.01 million 3G connections, up 1.219 million from 6.795 million 3G connections last quarter. - 42.61 million 2G connections, up 2.8 million from 37.788 million 2G…
