According to data released by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), GSM operators added 14.69 million subscribers in February 2011, taking the all- India GSM cellular subscriber base to 555.06 million.
The GSM subscriber base stood at 540.37 million at the end of January, 2011. These numbers, however, do not include additions by TATA DOCOMO and Reliance Telecom.
Bharti Airtel, the largest GSM player, added 3.20 million users in February, taking its total subscriber base to 158.99 million. It had 28.65 per cent market share as of the end of the month. Vodafone Essar, with a 23.59 per cent market share, notched up 3.55 million new subscribers during the reported month, the highest amongst all the service providers in the country.
Idea Cellular added 2.51 million users during the month to take its total user base to 86.80 million, while Aircel added 1.66 million customers to take its subscriber base to 53.50 million. In addition, BSNL and MTNL added 1.50 million and 25,786 new users, respectively, taking their subscriber base to 85.09 million and 5.17 million, respectively.
Reliance Telecom had a subscriber base of 23.87 million at the end of January 2011.
