According to a data by GSM industry lobby Cellular Operators’ Association of India (COAI), the telecom operators have added 9.3 million subscribers in August in the GSM segment taking the total number of GSM users in the country to 335.4 million.
Last month, the operators had added 9.9 million new users, showing a slump of 6% in August. The decline in August additions is attributed to the state-owned telcos like BSNL and MTNL, posting a dip in their monthly additions. Even with these growth figures, India remains as the world’s fastest growing mobile market.
The August growth is mainly due to good performance by Bharti Airtel on its efforts to penetrate rural and far-flung areas, which added 2.8 million subscribers taking its total subscriber base to 107.9 million and a market share of 32.19%. BSNL again lagged with adding nearly 1.3 million new users in August, a de-growth of 16% and MTNL posted a dip of about 43% in its monthly additions in August.
State-run BSNL and MTNL command a subscriber base of 52 million and 4.3 million, respectively. Apart from the PSU telcos posting a dip in new additions, Vodafone could add only 2.19 million users in August, as compared to 2.23 million in July. Vodafone’s subscriber base now stands at 80.8 million. Next was Idea Cellular with addition of nearly 1.5 million subscribers in August.
Figures Exclude Reliance Telecom GSM cellular services.