Reliance Communications (RCOM) has reported 37.2 million mobile Internet connections for the quarter ended September 30th 2015 (Q2FY16), up 5.08% from 35.4 million mobile Internet connections in the previous quarter, and 25.25% from the same quarter last year. Note that RCOM had started culling incidental mobile Internet users from Q4FY15. Incidental data users are users who have consumed less than 1 MB/month. This followed a similar move from Idea Cellular in Q3-FY14 and Airtel in Q1-FY15. Idea Cellular now only includes those users who consume more than 10 MB/month. 3G connections versus 2G connections RCOM's 3G connection base stood at 19.1 million and now accounts for 51.34% of all data connections. 3G connections were up 6.70% quarter-on-quarter and up 26.49% year-on-year. The 2G connection base also increased to 18.1 million, from 17.5 million in the previous quarter. RCOM is now adding more 2G users than before, after a few slow quarters. RCOM’s 3G connection base has surpassed its 2G mobile Internet connection base in the preceding quarter, and it is probably the only telecom operator for which this has happened. Mobile Internet data – Data usage per connection increased to 894 MB per data customer, from 752 MB per data customer a year ago, up 18.88%. – Data traffic on RCOMs network has increased to 97.3 billion MB, up 48% from 65.78 billion MB a year ago, up 48%. This was due to increase in data subscribers and higher data usage per customer. – Non-voice revenues accounted for Rs 1248.2 crore for RCOM – Average revenue per user (ARPU) declined to Rs 138 for the quarter, from Rs 140 in the previous quarter.…
