5 million GSM additions in November

Category: News | 1 Comment | Posted on December 9, 2006

GSM subscriber base in the country has crossed the 100-million landmark. 5 million new GSM subscribers were added in November, which is the largest since cellular services began in India in 1995.

India has now become the third-largest GSM market in the world behind China (401.7 million subscribers) and Russia (152.2 million).

During October, India had created a global record by adding 6.5 million new wireless (including both CDMA and GSM) subscribers.

The largest CDMA player, Reliance Communications, has added 1.35 million users in November, taking its total subscriber base to 29 million. The GSM plus Reliance Communications new additions figure in November totals up to 6.35 million and industry sources are confident that the total addition by operators on both technology platforms will cross the 7-million mark, creating a new record.

As per data compiled by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), the GSM subscriber base stood at 101.7 million by November-end, when compared to 96 million in October, 2006.

Bharti Airtel added over 1.65 million new users, crossing the 30-million mark.

Hutchison Essar added just over 1 million new users, taking its total base to 22.2 million.

BSNL, with the addition of just under a million new subscribers in November has a subscriber base of just under 23 million.

Among all circles, Category C circles witnessed the highest rate of growth at 6.9%, followed by Category B circles at 6.1%.

Within the Category C circles, the highest growth was recorded by Bihar at 8.5% followed by Assam at 8.4%, while in Category B circles, Haryana and MP recorded the highest growth at 9.6% and 6.9%, respectively.

Source: ET

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