Tata Tele leads mobile user addition with 3.3 mn in Dec

Tata Teleservices has added 3.3 million subscribers in December 2009, becoming the number one operator in terms of subscriber addition for the fifth consecutive time.

The dual technology (GSM and CDMA) service provider today said in a statement the company has become the number one telecom operator in the country for the fifth consecutive month in December, in terms of new subscriber additions, adding more than 3.3 million subscribers in the month.

With the new additions, the company has overtaken BSNL to become the fifth largest telecom firm in terms of subscriber additions, with over 57 million subscribers as on December 2009.

TTSL's GSM service DoCoMo brand coupled with its CDMA brand (Tata Indicom) pay-per-second billing system recently have catapulted the subscriber base of the company. Earlier Idea Cellular had replaced BSNL from number four position.

State-run BSNL has 5.72 crore wireless subscribers.

Bharti Airtel, the country's number one telecom operator in terms of mobile subscriber base has added 2.8 million subscribers in the same period. It is the market leader with 118.8 million subscribers. In total mobile user base Bharti Airtel is followed by Reliance Communications, Vodafone Essar, Idea Cellular, TTSL and BSNL.

"Tata Teleservices has added 3,336,476 new subscribers in December 2009 from its CDMA and GSM operations put together. In November 2009, too, TTSL had showed a healthy growth in new additions, with 3,329,215 new subscribers being added, the statement added.