India Adds 9.5 Million GSM Subscribers in May – Airtel Leads

India's largest Mobile Service operator Bharti airtel has added a total of 2.45 million GSM subscribers which are the highest number of new mobile subscriber additions followed by Vodafone Essar which has added 2.44 million new subscribers in May 2011. Airtel's GSM subscriber base now reached 167 million, according to the COAI data.

Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) today released the GSM subscriber base for May 2011, the new additions continue at a bit less growth rates compare to previous months. The total 9.5 million new GSM subscribers being added in the May 2011 at a monthly growth rate of 1.64% taking the all-India GSM cellular subscriber base to 590.19 million.

Among the GSM Mobile Service Operators, Vodafone Essar added 2.44 million new customers, boosting its subscriber base 139.4 million. IDEA Cellular notched up 1.8 million new subscribers during the month, taking its total base to 93.7 million. While India's national telecom backbone and Pan India 3G Mobile service operator Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) added up 0.47 million new users in March-2011, taking its total subscriber base to 87.6 million.

Aircel increased its base by over 1.1 million customers to take its subscriber base to 57 million. Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) added 20,604 new users during the month, boosting its total base to 5.23 million at the end of May, 2011.

Uninor, one of the youngest GSM operators in India has added 1.14 mn GSM subscriber and crosses 25 million subscribers milestone while Videocon sees negative growth with the loss of (-)1,86,161 subscribers and STel managed just 1,64,259 new subscribers from five circles. Etisalat DB/Cheers Mobile added just 94,193 subscribers in 13 circles.

Please note : COAI GSM Subscriber base does not include the Reliance GSM base and Tata Docomo subscriber Base (same not submitted to COAI).