Mobile subscriber base grew by 0.47 percent in May: COAI

Mobile subscriber base of GSM operators in India like Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular and others grew marginally by 0.47 percent cumulatively to 66.75 crore in May, as per the data released by industry body COAI.

"The GSM subscriber base increased by 3.11 million in May 2013, a 0.47 percent increase from previous month. Total number of GSM subscriber as of May 2013 stood at 667.56 million," Cellular Operators Association of India said in its subscriber report released Thursday.

According to the report, UP East continues to be the largest circle in terms of subscriber base with over 6 crore customers.

Vodafone led the growth in GSM segment with addition of 9 lakh new subscribers, taking its total customer base to 15.47 crore in May, it said.

Idea Cellular followed Vodafone in terms of new subscriber addition by adding 8.7 lakh new customers in the reported month.

Airtel added 6 lakh new customers but remained market leader with highest number of subscriber base at 18.88 crore, the report said.

In May, Aircel customer addition rate more than doubled with an addition of 2.8 lakh new subscribers compared to only 1 lakh that it had added in April. Uninor and Videocon added 1.5 lakh new customers each in May.

State run telecom firm MTNL lost 90 thousand mobile customers in May and there was no new customer acquired by other public sector company BSNL. Private operator Loop also did not acquire any new customer as per the report.