The Hindu Business Line : Mobile phone subscriber base rising

AFTER four months of subdued growth, the cellular subscriber base appears to be on the upswing again, with as many as 8.47 lakh additions in May as against 6.47 lakh in the previous month.

The total subscriber base in the country has now touched 14.17 million, according the latest statistics released by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI).

Among the operators, Bharti remains at the top, having warded off the threat from BSNL to top the charts with a subscriber base of 34.75 lakh.

BSNL has managed to rope in 29.42 lakh subscribers, followed by Hutchison at 24.02 lakh.

Bharti is also the single largest operator in any one single circle, having bagged over 10.06 lakh customers in Delhi.

Bharti has started gaining ground once again after a lull following the two-pronged attack from Reliance Infocomm (limited mobility services) and BSNL's cellular services.

It has improved its market share from 24 per cent in April to nearly 25 per cent in May.

While BSNL appears to be slipping, with net additions for the last three months having come down steeply from nearly seven lakh in March to four lakh in April and three lakh in May.

The COAI statistics said that Circle A has, for the second month running, surpassed the four metros in terms of highest mobile penetration.

While it has a combined subscriber base of 48.95 lakh, the metros have 48.17 lakh and Circle B has 38.63 lakh. Circle C continues to be far behind with only 5.99 lakh subscribers.

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