According to a new COAI report, the month of September has seen the mobile subscriber base (GSM) in India rise by 12.4 million users. The total number of GSM subscribers in the country now is estimated to be 494 million, as opposed to 481 million, the figure from August. This is a month on month increase if 2.58 per cent.
Amongst the GSM players, BSNL seems to be the gainer here who added as many as 2.3 million new subscribers in to its fold. Uninor was at the second spot with 2.17 million new subscribers. This is quite amusing because traditionally, the first two spots were the backyard of biggies like Airtel and Vodafone. In September Airtel and Vodafone added 2 million and 1.7 million new subscribers – respectively! Idea managed to garner 1.4 million new users.
Airtel however is still the leader and has 143 million subscribers in all- making it the largest GSM service in India. It is followed by Vodafone with 115 million. BSNL is down the list with over 72.6 million subscribers – while Uninor has just started off things with its 11 million userbase.
Anyway, note that these numbers are only for the GSM market. India has players like Tata Indicom and Reliance who have considerable user base in the CDMA sector.
