National telecoms regulator the Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA) has published its latest market observatory report for the month of Chaitra, 2068 (15 March – 14 April, 2012) showing that the total number of mobile lines in the country stood at 14.498 million at the end of the period, up from 14.215 million at mid-March. Data published in the NTA’s Management Information System report shows that at that date overall teledensity (fixed and mobile) stood at 61.42% (up from 60.34% a month earlier and 56.46% at mid-December 2011), with mobile accounting for the lion’s share – or 54.46% – of lines.

 
The mountain nation’s largest operator, state owned Nepal Doorsanchar Company Limited (Nepal Telecom, or NT) reported a total of 6.799 million GSM/CDMA cellular users, as well as 623,381 (PSTN) and 147,589 (WiLL) connections, at that date, while rival GSM provider Ncell reported 7.699 million SIMs, up from 7.463 million at mid-March. The country’s smaller players, however, lagged behind in terms of subscriber growth, with United Telecom Limited reaching 616,392 customers, up from 613,801 a month earlier, Nepal Satellite Telecom unchanged at 146,319 lines, Smart Telecom with 311,227 users (unchanged) and STM with 5,336 (unchanged).
The NTA also said the total number of data and internet subscribers stood at 4.667 million at mid-April, up from 4.437 million a month earlier, with the overwhelming majority (over 4.332 million) arising from GPRS mobile internet connections. The number of ADSL connections topped 83,464 for NT (up from 81,661), with cable modem, CDMA 1x and other (wireless, fibre-optic) reaching 17,036, 183,011 and 32,279 respectively.