The Hindu Business Line : GSM operators add over 5 million subscribers in May

New Delhi June 8 Riding on a steep reduction in roaming tariffs and cheaper long distance calls, GSM cellular segment continued to grow at a sweltering pace in May.

The all India GSM subscriber base grew from 125.57 million in April 2006 to 130.6 million in May 2007 recording an addition of over 5 million in May. There was an overall growth of 4.02 per cent over the previous month.

Mr T.V. Ramachandran, Director General, COAI said, "COAI is pleased with the growth of the GSM subscribers, which is being driven primarily by aggressive network expansions by the operators coupled with decreasing tariffs and increasing affordability."

BSNL tops

Despite facing capacity crunch state-owned BSNL led the growth in May with an addition of 2.3 lakh subscribers to take its total tally to 27.9 million. The PSU is expected to award a contract for 45.5 million line network this month after a delay of almost 7 months.

Bharti Airtel added 1.8 lakh users in May to cross the 40 million mark. Bharti is only the 10th operator to cross the 40- million subscriber mark globally. Hutchison Essar added 1.5 lakh users to touch 29.2 million subscribers. Vodafone is expected to take charge of Hutch this month, which could ramp up the company's operations over the next few months.

Circle-wise growth

The large number of disconnection owing to the subscriber verification drive did not seem to have an impact on the growth rate. Among the circles, Category B circles witnessed the highest rate of growth at 4.40 per cent. Within the Category B circles, the highest growth was recorded in Rajasthan followed by Madhya Pradesh. Category B circles were closely followed by Category C circles, which recorded a healthy growth of 4.21 per cent over the previous month. N-E Circle recorded the highest growth followed by Bihar. In the metros, where mobile penetration has reached saturation levels, subscribers grew by 3.04 per cent over the previous month. Delhi recorded the highest growth followed by Chennai.

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