The GSM cellular subscriber base in the country grew 3.79% to touch the 153.3 million-mark by the end of September, against 147.7 million subscribers by the end of August. But the country added only 5.6 million subscribers in the month, compared with an addition of 5.9 million mobile phone users the previous month.
According to the latest data released by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), Bharti Airtel added 2.06 million mobile users in September, taking its subscriber base to 48.88 million by the end of September. Vodafone Essar, its nearest rival in the GSM space, added 1.54 million users, taking its total subscriber base to 35.66 million.
State-run BSNL and MTNL added 5,98,804 and 43,030 new users, respectively, taking their respective user base by the end of September to 30.30 million and 2.77 million. The market share of both the state-run operators dropped marginally in September, whereas it went up for all private operators.
Idea Cellular had 18.67 million mobile phone subscribers at the end of September after an addition of 8,00,904 new subscribers during the month.
Bharti Airtel remains the leader with a market share of 31.88%, followed by Vodafone Essar (23.26%), BSNL (19.77%), Idea (12.18%), Aircel (5.24%), Reliance Telecom (2.4%), Spice (2.27%), MTNL (1.81%) and BPL (0.75%).
Among circles, the overall subscriber base in Delhi reached 9.4 million from 9.1 million in August, registering a growth of 3.39%. Mumbai and Chennai, on the other hand, grew 2.23% and 4.27%, respectively, whereas Kolkata grew 3.69%.