Accelerated coverage into interiors of India helped mobile operators add more cellular subscribers in August-07. As usual, RCom doesn’t have its numbers yet[Ambani doesn’t want to be first here ?] and excluding it, GSM operators added 5.95 million subscribers in August-07 taking the total GSM subscriber base to 147 million.
Bharti Airtel continues to rock the show with net addition of 2.05 million in Aug-07 and it is expected to close FY2008 with 62 million mobile subscribers. Vodafone Essar added 1.68 million with just 16 circles under operations. It is awaiting spectrum in 6 more circles and is the top contender. Idea Cellular added 867,000 subscribers in Aug-07. BSNL the loser, managed to get mere 725,000 subscribers. Maxis Aircel has picked up steam and added 458,000 subscribers.
At the end of August-2007, the top 5 cellular service providers in the GSM segment are,
- Bharti Airtel – 46.81 mn subscribers
- Vodafone Essar – Hutch – 34.115 mn subscribers
- BSNL Cellone – 29.074 mn subscribers
- Idea Cellular – 17.871 mn subscribers
- Aircel – 7.62 mn subscribers
Reliance Telecom [GSM wing of Reliance Communications] is out of the Top-5 .
Surprise of August-2007 Data – Net additions in Circle – C has recorded a negative growth. BSNL is the market leader in these circles and due to its capacity constraints it couldn’t perform. However, it is surprising that Bharti Airtel was a non-performer in these circles.
1 Comment
Comments are closed.