India's Idea the biggest beneficiary from MNP

India's Idea Cellular has emerged as the biggest beneficiary from the introduction of mobile number portability to the nation in 2011, a new report shows.

Idea Cellular reported 17 million net port-ins up to the end of January this year, India Today reported, 

Along with Vodafone India, which achieved 11.1 million net gains, and Bharti Airtel with 7.3 million, the three incumbent operators were the only net gainers.

The other operators have lost a combined 35.4 million subscribers, with Reliance Communications hardest-hit with a net loss of 10.8 million.

Aircel posted a net loss of 6.6 million subscribers and Tata Teleservices lost 6.4 million. Telenor saw a loss of 4.4 million, a high figure considering its relatively low market share. State-owned BSNL's net loss was 2.5 million over the period.

Reflecting a continuing decline in the market for CDMA services, the market's three CDMA operators meanwhile reported a net subscriber loss of 8.3 million.

Kotak Institutional Equities said this appears to be attributable to high-voice-usage subscribers that had been stuck with CDMA due to not wanting to change their phone numbers, as reflected by the sustained sharp decline in CDMA voice minutes of use.