GSM operators lost 7.1 million subscribers in August: COAI

The top three operators Airtel, Vodafone and Idea which account for close to 68 per cent of the GSM market, lost over 5.1 million users in August, data released by COAI said.

Bharti Airtel, which is the industry leader with a 27.82 per cent market share, lost 1.90 million users to take its subscriber base to 186.9 million, it said.

Idea Cellular and Vodafone lost 1.64 million users and 1.55 million users, respectively. With this, Idea Cellular's subscriber base stood at 115.97 million, while that of Vodafone was at 153.35 million at the end of August 2012, COAI said.

Analysts suggest that the fall may be on account of operators withdrawing offers and customers, with multiple SIMs shedding their connections.

Aircel and Loop Mobile were the only operators which witnessed growth. While Aircel added 793,717 new users, Loop Mobile added 79,842 new subscribers in August.

Uninor, which was growing strongly in the last few months, witnessed the sharpest decline of 2.38 million users, taking its subscriber base to 42.11 million at the end of August, the COAI said.

The COAI figures did not include the data for state-run operator BSNL for the month of August, but said the operator had a 14.09 per cent share in the GSM market with 94.67 million subscribers.

Another state run firm MTNL lost 103,553 users, taking its userbase to 5.12 million at the end of August 2012, it said.