New GSM users: Airtel, Aircel top in November

Airtel adds 1.7 mn subscribers while Aircel's users increased by 1.5 mn

Bharti Airtel, India's largest telecom operator by users, added 1.7 million in November, according to data released by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI). Airtel has 194.8 million subscribers.

While Vodafone matched Airtel, adding 1.3 million subscribers, Idea Cellular, the third largest operator, slowed unusually, adding only 36,219. Idea added a little more than a million subscribers in October and has 128 million subscribers in total.

Uninor, which operates in six circles, gave 36,089 new connections; it has 32.3 million subscribers in all.

Aircel added more subscribers than Vodafone in the month, at 1.5 million. The operator's subscribers grew 2.4 per cent over October. Videocon, which added 185,846 subscribers, showed the highest growth at 5.3 per cent. It has 3.4 million subscribers in total.

State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd and Loop Mobile, which has operations in Mumbai, did not add any subscribers in the month. State-owned Mahanagar Telecom Nigam Ltd, which operates in Delhi and Mumbai, added 5,933 subscribers, taking its total  to 3.4 million.

GSM subscribers increased by 4.8 million from October to 688 million.