According to the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), the GSM subscriber base in rural areas witnessed an increase of 4.15 million users in December 2014. The overall rural customer base grew by 1.3 per cent from 315.64 million as of end-November 2014 to 319.79 million as of end-December 2014.
Among the service providers, Idea Cellular recorded the highest growth in rural customer base during December 2014, with an addition of 2.04 million subscribers taking the operator?s overall rural users base to 83.25 million. Bharti Airtel witnessed the second highest addition of new rural users, with 0.85 million customers, which increased its total rural subscriber base to 101.25 million. The total rural subscriber base of Vodafone India stood at 93.79 million, following an increment of 0.50 million users during December 2014. Aircel?s rural subscriber base stood at 27.84 million as of end-December 2014, following an addition of 0.38 million new users in the period under consideration.
Telewings Communications experienced the highest month-on-month growth rate of 2.86 per cent in its subscriber base, adding about 0.38 million rural users during December 2014. As of end-December 2014, the total rural subscriber base of Telewings stood at 13.66 million.
In terms of rural-urban mix, Idea and Vodafone had the highest number of rural customers as of end-December 2014. Meanwhile, among the service areas, the Maharashtra circle witnessed the maximum number of net addition of 0.87 million new rural subscribers during December 2014.
