Telcos add 63 lakh GSM subscribers in Oct to reach 74 crore

Bharti Airtel added 27.67 lakh new subscribers, while Vodafone added 13.06 lakh users

The GSM mobile subscribers' base in the country increased by 63 lakh in October to reach 73.94 crore, industry body COAI said today.

The total number of GSM users stood at 73.31 crore at the end of September, Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) said.

Country's top operator Bharti Airtel added 27.67 lakh new subscribers in October to take its mumber to 23.79 crore with a market share of 32.18%.

Vodafone added 13.06 lakh users and its base increased to 18.94 crore with a market share of 25.62% whereas Idea Cellular added 7.24 lakh new subscribers to take its base to 16.72 lakh with 22.62% share.

Aircel added 6.12 lakh subscribers while Telenor added 9.32 lakh and their user bases stood at 8.46 crore and 4.87 crore respectively.

State-run MTNL added 6,342 subscribers to take its base to 35.18 lakh while Videocon Telecom lost 51,004 subscribers and its base reduced to 78.49 lakh during the reported period.

COAI did not report GSM numbers of BSNL, Reliance Communications and Tata Teleservices.