The Hindu Business Line : Cell user base at 29.77 m in Jan

AS many as 1.59 million additional subscribers have taken fresh mobile connections during January 2004, taking the total cellular subscriber base to 29.77 million across the country.

As per the latest statistics released by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) and the Association of Basic Telecom Operators (ABTO), while the aggregate GSM cellular subscriber base has been placed at 23.36 million, the CDMA subscriber figure (excluding BSNL and MTNL) is lower at 6.41 million.

As many as 13.75 lakh additions took place in the GSM segment while 2.17 lakh new subscribers joined the CDMA bandwagon during the month.

At the individual operator level across the technology platforms, Reliance Infocomm had a 64.53 lakh subscriber base (57.49 lakh in CDMA and 7.04 lakh in GSM), followed by Bharti with 58.62 lakh (GSM), BSNL 48.90 lakh (GSM), Hutch 44.61 lakh (GSM) and Idea Cellular 24.44 lakh (GSM).

Bharti is also the single largest operator in any one single circle, having bagged over 13.66 lakh customers in Delhi.

According to the estimates of the COAI (which pertains to the GSM segment of operators), the regions in Circle A continued to account for the highest subscriber base at 85.48 lakh, followed closely by the four metros at 73.74 lakh subscribers and Circle B at 65.01 lakh subscribers.