Rural mobile subscription picks up in October

Service providers add 3.69 mn rural GSM users in October, after tepid growth in last couple of months during monsoon

Indian telecommunication providers added 3.69 million rural GSM mobile subscribers in October, after tepid growth during the monsoon.

All India rural subscriber base now stands at 350.10 million. In September, the addition was nil, while in August telcos had added two million subscribers after losing similar amount if customers in July.

Telecommunication companies usually consider monsoon season as a weak period as people remain busy in agricultural activities and find limited time to use or buy mobile connection.

During October, Airtel added highest number of customers in rural markets, at 1.54 million customers followed by Vodafone India which took a little more than a million rural customers into its fold. Idea Cellular, which has more rural subscribers than urban subscribers out of its total 117 million customers, added 0.7 million rural customers last month, according to the data provided by Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI).

Airtel now has 113.92 rural subscribers, highest in the country, followed by Vodafone and Idea. Vodafone and Idea have more than half of their customers from rural India while for Airtel, urban consumers constitute the bigger share.

Circle wise, Andhra Pradesh added highest customers during the month, followed by Rajasthan and West Bengal, the operators' lobby group said.