India’s mobile phone users grow to 729.57 million
By IANSTuesday, January 25, 2011
NEW DELHI - India added 22.88 million mobile phone subscribers in November, taking the total number of cellular users to 729.57 million till Nov 30, 2010, official data revealed Tuesday.
According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the wireless phone user base grew 3.24 percent to 729.57 million in November last year, from 706.69 million in the previous month.
With this the total telephone subscriber base in the country, both wireless and wireline, touched 764.76 million. The total telephone density reached 64.34 percent.
The growth in India’s wireless phone category was led by Vodafone Essar with an addition of 3.13 million users, 13.66 percent of the net addition in November 2010, taking its user base to 121.16 million.
Telecom giant Bharti Airtel followed next with an addition of over 3.1 million subscribers accounting for 13.55 percent of the net addition during the month under review taking its total number of subscribers to 149.4 million
Anil Ambani-led Reliance Communication stood at the third spot with an addition of 3 million subscribers taking its total subscriber base to 122.4 million. State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) added 2.99 million subscribers taking its total number of subscribers to 83.73 million.
Other telecom players such as Idea Cellular performed remarkably with the addition of 2.8 million users closely followed by Uninor which added 2.45 million users taking their total subscriber base to 78.83 million and 16.19 million respectively.
According to the data, the broadband subscriber base grew 1.80 percent from 10.52 million in October 2010 to 10.71 million in November 2010.
However, the wireline segment declined further from 35.43 million in October 2010 to 35.19 million at the end of November 2010.
