India's GSM subscriber base continues to fall down, 1% down from November's data it is now 657.16 million by the end of December 2012, with GSM subscribers lost 6.62 million customers last month as per the data published by GSM operators' representative Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI).
The trend of shrinking subscriber base continues, due to several factors are working in the sector. Operators are disconnecting inactive SIMs, reduce freebies on new SIMs as well as TRAI's latest strict norm for customer verification.
"GSM customer numbers continue to drop as there has been a visible reduction in growth adds since there's been no relaxation in DoT's tough customer verification rules, coupled with the weeding out of idle customers being undertaken by all GSM carriers," claimed COAI director general Rajan Mathews.
Airtel, Vodafone, Idea and Aircel lost 1.7m, 3.28m, 0.19m and 1.97m customers in December. While Uninor added 0.91m customers last month, probably due to its strategy to offer cheaper tariff plans.
