GSM players add 2.10 million rural users in June: COAI

GSM operators added 2.10 million new subscribers in rural areas in June to take the overall rural user base to 302.73 million, industry body COAI said today.

The GSM rural subscriber base stood at 300.63 million at the end of May 2014.

Bharti Airtel has the maximum rural users at 96.63 million the end of reported period whereas Vodafone added the maximum during the month of June to take its rural user base to 90.91 million.

Idea's Cellular's rural subscriber base stood at 76.85 million at the end of June whereas that of Aircel and Uninor stood at 25.96 million and 12.38 million, respectively.

As a subscriber mix, Vodafone and Idea has higher percentage of rural users as compared to urban users whereas Airtel, Aircel and Uninor has more percentage of urban subscribers.

The total rural subscriber base at the end of May stood at 382.10 million, which include 376.22 million wireless and 5.87 million wireline subscribers.