GSM mobile base rises 1.4% in Feb to reach 69.7 cr users: COAI

GSM mobile operators added 95.94 lakh more subscribers in February, taking the overall user base to 69.70 crore at the end of the month, industry body Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) said today.

"All India GSM cellular subscriber figures as of February 2015 stood at 69.70 crore. The subscribers increased by 95.94 lakh in February, (1.40 per cent increase from previous month," COAI said in a statement.

The number of GSM mobile users stood at 68.74 crore at the end of January, it added.

COAI, which represents telecom players like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular, said the data does not include GSM subscriber number of Reliance Communications, Tata Teleservices, BSNL and Quadrant.

Reliance Jio Infocomm, which is yet to start its mobile telephone services, is also a part of the body.

Company-wise, Bharti Airtel added 30.69 lakh subscribers to take its base to 22.31 crore at the end of February. It has a market share of 32.01%.

Vodafone added 19.50 lakh users during the month to reach a total of 18.24 crore users and has a market share of 26.18 per cent.

Idea Cellular added 26.98 lakh subscribers, taking the total subscriber base to 15.54 crore. The firm has a market share of 22.30 per cent.

Among others, Aircel and Uninor added 9.15 lakh and 6.65 lakh subscribers and their user bases stood at 8.05 crore and 4.51 crore, respectively, as of February end.

Videocon added 2.77 lakh users during the month with a total subscriber base of 69.02 lakh, while state-run MTNL added 18,719 users to increase its overall base to 34.04 lakh at the end of February.