GSM Subscriber Base Grows by 9.3mn in August

Indian GSM mobile operators added 9.31 million users in August as against 9.9 million new users in the previous month that is down 6%. This drop in new additions is primarily due to poor showing of state-owned telcos BSNL and MTNL, which reported a decline of as much as 16% and 43%, respectively.

The total subscriber base of GSM operators in India now stands at 335.5 million, as per data released by the Cellular Operators’ Association of India (COAI).

The monthly data does not include GSM subscribers of Reliance Communications and Tata Teleservices, a majority of whose customers use the CDMA platform. The two companies report figures separately.

The breakup of the additions by GSM mobile operators in August is as follows (in millions): Bharti Airtel 2.82; Vodafone Essar 2.19; BSNL 1.36; Idea Cellular 1.54; Aircel 1.31; MTNL 66,909.