India adds 9.2 mn GSM subscribers in February

The GSM subscriber base in the country grew by 9.2 million (excluding Reliance Telecom) in February 2009. According to the latest data released by the Cellular Operators’ Association of India (COAI), the total GSM subscriber base in the country rose to 277.16 million in February, about 3.6 per cent more from 267.54 million in the previous month.

India’s largest private telecom operator Bharti Airtel continued to dominate the market as its subscriber base rose to 91.11 million in February. The operator added 2.73 million subscribers to its base. However, with the entry of new operators in the GSM market, the company’s market share declined to 32.88 per cent, compared with 33.04 per cent in the previous month.

Vodafone-Essar, another prominent private player, added about 2.6 million customers to its subscriber base, witnessing 4.9 per cent growth over the previous month. The company increased its market share marginally to 23.79 per cent as against 23.68 per cent in January.

The company’s total subscriber base stood just under 66 million during the end of the reporting month.

Meanwhile, the state-owned operators managed to stabilise their market share in February after continuously losing share to the private players. The market share of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), which operates across the country except Delhi and Mumbai, stood at 15.94 per cent in February, compared with 15.95 per cent in the previous month.

The company added about 1.5 million subscribers during the month, taking its total subscriber base to 44.18 million. Despite launching its 3G services in early February, state-owned Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL), which operates in Delhi and Mumbai, added about 80,000 subscribers to its total base taking it to over 4.08 million. In January, MTNL had added over 100,000 subscribers to its network.

Meanwhile, AV Birla-promoted Idea Cellular (along with Spice Communications) witnessed a rise of 3.75 per cent in its subscriber base over the preceding month as it added about 1.5 million users during the month to report a total subscriber base of 41.5 million.