Airtel adds 2.33 Million new subscribers in October 2016 followed by Idea with 1.44 million new additions -COAI

Bharti Airtel, India’s leading carrier has added 2.33 million subscribers in the month of October, taking its overall base to 262.67 million in the country, this is the highest addition of subscribers among operators whose data was reported by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) on Tuesday. Interestingly the report does not contain the subscription data of Reliance Jio who is also a member of COAI and in all likelihood has added more subscribers in October than Airtel.

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COAI OCT 2016

The combined GSM subscriber base grew upward even though Jio was offering free benefits under preview offer. Total subscriber base of these six operators grew by 5.55 million in October with a total user-base reaching 791.62 million users.

Telecom major Bharti Airtel led the growth by adding 0.90% more new subscribers than September taking its total mobile customer base to 262.67 million, representing nearly 33.13 percent of the overall GSM subscriber base in the country during October.

Aditya Birla owned telecom operator Idea Cellular added over 1.44 million new subscribers mostly in their strong circles taking its overall base to 180.25 million. With this the company now has 22.77 percent of the GSM market share.

Second largest operator Vodafone India, added 1.18 million subscribers mostly in low tele density circles like West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh East and West. The company now has 201.90 million subscribers in the country and we expect it to further grow once they complete 4G and 3G roll out in more circles.

Smaller operators are badly hit by Jio as they continue to lose subscribers in most circles. Aircel which is expected to re-brand after RCom completes merger process, has added only 0.2 million customers. The company lost their subscribers in 5 circles including home circle of Tamil Nadu. While Telenor India managed to attract 0.41 million new subscribers, thanks to their unlimited night and low cost offerings which they had launched few weeks ago after seeing rising churn rate in September.