Mobile subscriber base reaches 15 cr in Jan

NEW DELHI: India's total mobile subscriber base has touched the 15 crore mark with the addition of over 66 lakh subscribers in January.

While GSM cellular subscriber base crossed the 11 crore mark in January, the number of CDMA-based mobile users has swelled to 3.8 crore during the month, according to data released by trade associations COAI and AUSPI respectively.

CDMA operators added 16.40 lakh subscribers in the month, while GSM based cellular companies added over 50 lakh new users.

Reliance Communications added 11.72 lakh CDMA subscribers in January, taking its total subscriber base to 2.75 crore.

Tata Teleservices' subscriber base reached 1.07 crore with the addition of 4.63 lakh subscribers in January.

Sustaining its aggressive growth in subscriber additions, the GSM-based cellular industry added over 50 lakh subscribers in January with Bharti Airtel capturing about 31 per cent market share.

With this, the all-India GSM subscriber base has touched over 11 crore at the end of January 2007 compared to 10.54 crore as on December 2006.

In January, the cellular subscriber base of Bharti touched 3.37 crore, followed by BSNL at 2.44 crore with a market share of 22.13 per cent.

Hutch-Essar has 2.44 crore subscribers, taking its market share to 22.10 per cent and Idea, with a market share of 11.83 per cent, has 1.3 crore subscribers.

Aircel's user base in January stood at over 48 lakh, followed by Reliance Telecom's 38.76 lakh subscribers.

MTNL's GSM subscriber base in Delhi and Mumbai touched 24.98 lakh, while Spice Telecom has 25.56 lakh subscribers. BPL has 10.62 lakh subscribers.

"The Indian GSM industry has witnessed an excellent start in the year 2007 and the same growth trend is expected to continue in the months to come," COAI Director General TV Ramachandran said.

Among all circles, Category C circles witnessed the highest growth rate at 5.9 per cent, followed by Category B circles at 5.4 per cent. Within the Category C circles, Assam and North East recorded the highest growth at 8.3 per cent and 6.8 per cent respectively.

Within the Category B circles, highest growth was recorded by Haryana at 9.1 per cent followed by West Bengal and Andaman and Nicobar at 7.7 per cent.

Category A circles also witnessed a growth of 4.9 per cent in January. Karnataka recorded the highest growth of 5.2 per cent, followed by Maharashtra at 4.9 per cent.

Metro subscribers grew 2.8 per cent over the previous month. Mumbai recorded the highest growth at 3.8 per cent.