The Hindu Business Line : GSM subscriber base grows by 3.5 m in Jan

LIFETIME pre-paid offers seems to be paying off with GSM base operators adding another 3.5 million new mobile users in January. This is the highest ever additions on a monthly basis overtaking the previous best of 3.2 million new subscribers in December 2005.

With this, the GSM subscriber base in the country reached 62 million representing a growth of 6 per cent compared to the previous month.

State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd recorded the highest number of new subscribers in January with 1.07 million users followed by market leaders Bharti Airtel, which saw 1.04 million new subscribers across the country. Bharti has the highest number of mobile users at 17.3 million subscribers followed by BSNL with 15.37 million. Hutch added 7.7 lakh new users, taking its total tally to 13.7 million; Idea Cellular had 2.6 lakh new mobile users in January taking its total to 6.73 million.

With more tariff cuts, especially in the long distance segment expected this month, the growth in subscribers base is likely to maintain the tempo. The Government has set a target of 250 million telephone connections by 2007, which requires an addition of four million new users very month. The CDMA operators have not yet announced their growth numbers for the month of January.

According to data released by the Cellular Operators Association of India, category C circles continued to witness the highest rate of growth at 8.3 per cent, which is much higher compared to the metros. Within the category C circles, the highest growth was recorded in Assam Circle followed by North East January was a good month for Category A circles, which recorded a healthy growth of 6.85 per cent over the previous month. Karnataka recorded the highest growth followed by Andhra Pradesh

In absolute numbers, Circle A States have added the maximum with 1.4 million new users followed by Circle B States with 1.2 million new mobile users in January.