According to the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), the GSM subscriber base in rural areas witnessed an addition of 3.61 million users during May 2015. The overall rural customer base grew by 1.1 per cent from 341.53 million as of end-April 2015 to 345.14 million as of end-May 2015.
Idea added the maximum number of rural subscribers (1.67 million) in May 2015, followed by Vodafone with 0.77 million subscriber additions. Meanwhile, Bharti Airtel added 0.60 million rural subscribers during the same period. Bharti Airtel remained the operator with the largest rural subscriber base of 109.51 million subscribers, as of end-May 2015.
Among the circles, Uttar Pradesh (east) witnessed maximum number of rural subscribers additions at 0.72 million. It also remained the largest circle in terms of total base with 36.86 million rural connections.
