According to the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), the GSM subscriber base in rural areas has increased by 2.10 million users in June 2014. With this, the overall rural customer base grew from 300.63 million as of end-May 2014 to 302.73 million as of end-June 2014.
The West Bengal circle witnessed the maximum addition of rural subscribers at 428,022 in June 2014, while the Uttar Pradesh (East) circle had the highest number of rural customers at 32.64 million as of end-June 2014.
With regards to service providers, Vodafone India recorded the highest accrual in customer base at 0.7 percent during June 2014, with 0.58 million new subscribers taking the operator?s overall rural users base to 90.91 million. Moreover, among all the operators, Vodafone has the highest percentage of rural users in its overall subscriber base.
The total rural subscriber base of Bharti Airtel stood at 96.63 million, following an addition of 0.45 million new users in June 2014. Idea Cellular witnessed an addition of 0.36 million users, which increased its total rural subscriber base to 76.85 million. Aircel?s rural subscriber base stood at 25.96 million, following an addition of 0.27 million new users and Uninor added 0.44 million users to increase its rural users to 12.38 million.
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