India adds 6.42 mn GSM mobile users in July

NEW DELHI: India added 6.42 million mobile users in July in its GSM-based telecom networks, an industry body said on Wednesday, accelerating the pace of user growth from the previous month. Handsets costing as low as $15 and call rates as low as 1 US cent a minute have helped India to become the world's fastest-growing market for wireless services and the second-largest market for such services after China.

In June, 6.32 million users had signed up. India had 218.9 million GSM users at the end of July, data from the Cellular Operators' Association of India showed. The data includes Reliance Communications' GSM network as of June.

Reliance Communications, the No 2 telecoms firm, a majority of whose subscribers are its CDMA network, announces subscriber numbers separately. It had added a total of 1.74 million mobile users in June to 50.8 million.

Top operator Bharti Airtel added 2.69 million users in July, taking its total to 72.1 million, the data showed. Vodafone Plc controlled Vodafone Essar, the third largest firm, had 50.95 million users at the end of July, having added 1.76 million users in the month. No. 4 mobile firm Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd, which is gearing up for a $10 billion public offer, added 553,219 GSM mobile users in the month to end with 37.92 million.

It also had 30.9 million fixed-line users as of June. No 5 Idea Cellular, which is buying smaller Spice Communications, got 1.05 million new users in July, taking its total subscribers to 28.2 million. Spice had 4.2 million mobile users as of July.

Source : Economic Times