According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the overall Indian telecom subscriber base increased by 0.27 per cent, from 935.87 million as of end-April 2014 to 938.4 million as of end-May 2014. The wireless subscriber base increased by 0.30 per cent to 910.16 million, while the wireline user base witnessed a decline of 0.62 per cent to 28.18 million during the same period.
The urban subscriber base declined by 0.01 per cent month-on-month (MoM) to 556.25 million as on May 31, 2014 while rural subscriber base increased by 0.68 per cent MoM to 382.10 million as on May 31, 2014. The overall teledensity stood 75.51 per cent, with urban teledensity at 145.56 per cent and rural teledensity at 44.40 per cent.
Among the operators, Bharti Airtel witnessed the maximum user addition during May 2014. The operator added 1.65 million subscribers taking its overall subscriber base to over 208 million. Idea Cellular and Vodafone India added 1.16 million and 982,381 subscribers during the month respectively, taking their overall subscriber base to 137.7 million and 168.2 million.
Uninor, Aircel, Videocon Telecom and Tata Teleservices Limited added 1.30 million users; 942,210 users; 127,256 users; and 81,539 users during May 2014. Further, Sistema Shyam TeleServices Limited and Loop Mobile added 25,917 and 24,723 subscribers respectively.
Meanwhile, state-owned operators Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited lost 1.57 million subscribers while Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited gained 11,606 subscribers.
During the month, 2.23 million mobile subscribers opted for mobile number portability (MNP) facility. Further, active mobile subscriptions stood at 790.5 million, about 86.9 per cent of the total subscriber base.
