According to the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), the GSM subscriber base in rural areas witnessed an addition of 7.31 million users during March 2015. The overall rural customer base grew by 2.21 per cent from 330.34 million as of end-February 2015 to 337.65 million as of end-March 2015.
Idea Cellular added the maximum number of rural subscribers (2.83 million) in March 2015, followed by Bharti Airtel with 2.68 million subscriber additions. Meanwhile, Vodafone India added 1.46 million rural subscribers during the same period. Bharti Airtel also had the largest rural subscriber base of 107.61 million subscribers, as of end-March 2015.
Among the circles, Bihar witnessed maximum number of rural subscribers additions at 1.10 million while Uttar Pradesh (East) remained the largest circle in terms of total base with 35.71 million rural connections.
