According to data released by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), the GSM user base continued to decline in December 2012, with operators losing over 6 million subscribers. With this, the total user base declined to 657.16 million, from 663.78 million in November 2012.
Operator-wise, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular lost over 5 million users in the period under consideration. Meanwhile, Uninor was the only operator which added 9,18,552 new users.
Bharti Airtel lost 1.70 million users, to take its subscriber base to 181.91 million in December 2012. Similarly, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular lost 3.29 million and 1.97 million users respectively and their user bases stood at 147.48 million and 113.95 million respectively.
Aircel lost 1.98 million users in December, taking its user base to 63.35 million, while Videocon lost 3,71,953 subscribers, taking its subscriber base to 3.64 million in the period under consideration.
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited’s user base stood at 97.17 million subscribers, while Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited lost 2,253 users, taking its user base to 5.12 million at the end of December 2012.
