GSM mobile subscribers rise 1.16 percent to 721.93 million in March: COAI

The number of mobile subscribers on GSM network grew by 1.16 percent to 721.93 million in March, as per the latest data released by industry body COAI.

"All India GSM cellular subscriber figures as of March, 2014 reached 721.93 million. The (number of) GSM subscribers increased by 8.26 million in March 2014, 1.16 percent increase from previous month," The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) said in its report on Monday.

The number excludes subscribers of Reliance Communications and Tata Teleservices, which also have GSM licences but do not report numbers to COAI.

After picking up growth momentum in November 2013, March saw a dip in subscriber growth. In February, over 10.26 million subscribers were added by GSM operators.

The growth in March was led by Idea Cellular, which added over 2.23 million subscribers, followed by Vodafone with 2.22 million and Airtel 1.89 million.

Aircel, Uninor and Videocon added 1 million, 0.72 million and 0.32 million customers, respectively.

Airtel continued to lead GSM mobile services market with a subscriber base of 205.39 million.

When initially reported by COAI, additions in the month of February did not include users from the country's largest operator Bharti Airtel, as the data could not be compiled due to a technical problem.

Idea Cellular in February added 33.32 lakh new users to take its subscriber base to 13.35 crores at the end of February. Vodafone added 21.55 lakh new subscribers and its base stood at 16.43 crores, with 23.11 percent market share.

Videocon user base grew by over 10 percent during February, with additions of 4.33 lakh and its base had increased to 46.66 lakh.

Uninor and Aircel added 9.70 lakh and 7.02 lakh users respectively. Uninor subscriber base moved up to 3.48 crores, while that of Aircel was 6.91 crores.

State-owned telecom firm MTNL, which operates in Delhi and Mumbai, added 12,358 subscribers during February taking its user base to 33.79 lakh.

The GSM rural subscriber base stood at 28.88 crores at the end of February.