Telcos add 10.42 mn subscribers in Oct

Despite the financial slowdown, the Indian telecom industry continued its high growth rate as it added over 10 million subscribers in October 2008. According to the latest data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), the total wireless subscriber base (GSM, CDMA and WLL(F)) increased by 10.42 million to reach 325.73 million as against 10.07 million added in the previous month.

However, in the landline segment, the total number of subscribers decreased from 38.35 million in

September to 38.22 million in October.

During October, the total number of phone connections in the country rose to 363.95 million, taking the teledensity (number of people having a telephone connection per 100) to 31.5 from 30.64 per cent in September this year.

The broadband penetration in the country is also witnessing a steady increase as the subscriber base here crossed the 5 million mark to reach 5.05 million in October, as against 4.9 million in September 2008.

In the wireless segment, Bharti Airtel led the subscriber growth with the addition of 2.7 million subscribers in October to take its subscriber base to 80.2 million. Vodafone Essar came in second with a total of 2.07 million subscribers, resulting in a subscriber base of 56.7 million.