The GSM mobile subscriber base in the country grew marginally in January
to 65.75 crore, with net addition of 4 lakh new customers over the
previous month led by Idea Cellular, Airtel and Vodafone, as per data
released by industry body COAI.
The total GSM mobile subscriber base stood at 65.71 crore in December.
The subscriber base witnessed growth after two months of decline in November and December, 2012.
Idea
Cellular led the growth by adding 24.5 lakh customers over its
subscriber base in December, taking its total subscriber base to 11.64
crore. The company had lost 1.97 lakh customers in December.
Bharti Airtel added 22.86 lakh new subscribers in January and taking its total subscriber base to 18.41 crore.
Vodafone's subscriber base increased to 14.77 crore with an addition of over 2 lakh customers.
However,
subscriber base of Videocon dipped by around 13 lakh to 22.57 lakh in
January from 36.4 lakh in December, a fall of 38 percent
month-on-month.
Aircel and Uninor lost 17.75 lakh and 14 lakh
customers, respectively across the country in January. Uninor had 26,550
customers in Mumbai where it closed operations last week.
The
data of total GSM user base released by Cellular Operators Association
of India included BSNL subscriber base of October, Loop's of September
and MTNL's as in December 2012.
COAI data also does not include GSM subscriber base of Reliance Communications and Tata Teleservices.