GSM subscriber base touches 121 Million

The GSM-based cellular industry has added over 61 lakh subscribers in March with Bharti Airtel capturing 30.59 percent of the market share.

With this, the all-India GSM subscriber base has touched 12.14 crore at the end of March 2007 compared to 11.53 crore as on end of February 2007, reflecting a growth rate of five percent, the COAI said in a statement. CDMA mobile figures are yet to be out.

In March, the cellular subscriber base of Bharti touched 3.71 crore with additions of over 17 lakh users, followed by BSNL at 2.74 crore with a market share of 22.59 percent and additions of over 19.84 lakh subscribers. Hutch-Essar has 2.64 crore subscribers, taking its market share to 21.78 percent and Idea with a market share of 11.54 percent has 1.4 crore subscribers in March.

Hutch-Essar added 10.98 lakh subscribers in the month of March, while Idea added 3.7 lakh mobile users in the same month. MTNL’s GSM subscriber base in Delhi and Mumbai touched 27.46 lakh, while Spice Telecom has also over 27 lakh subscribers. Aircel’s user base in March stood at 55.14 lakh, followed by Reliance Telecom’s 43.4 lakh subscribers.

Among all circles, Category C circles witnessed the highest rate of growth at 8.7 percent, followed by Category B circles at 6 percent. Within the Category C circles, the highest growth was recorded by the Assam circle at 12.4 percent followed by North East at 11.2 percent.

Source: The Indian Express