According to the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), the GSM rural subscriber base in India witnessed an increase of 3.79 million users in October 2014. The overall rural customer base grew by 1.23 per cent from 307.54 million as of end-September 2014 to 311.33 million as of end-October 2014.
Among the service providers, Bharti Airtel recorded the highest growth in rural customer base during October 2014, with an addition of 1.66 million subscribers taking the operator?s overall rural user base to 99.11 million. Idea Cellular witnessed the second highest addition of new rural users (1.10 million customers), which increased its total rural subscriber base to 79.33 million. The operator was followed by Vodafone India which recorded an addition of 0.65 million rural customers. As of end-October 2014, Vodafone India?s overall rural base stood at 92.51 million.
Aircel?s rural subscriber base stood at 27.13 million as of end-October 2014, following an addition of 0.32 million new users in the period under consideration. Telewings Communications added about 0.06 million rural users during October 2014 taking its total rural subscriber base to 13.25 million.
In terms of rural-urban mix, Idea and Vodafone had the highest number of rural customers as of end-October 2014.
