GSM operators lost nearly 9 million subscribers in November, the biggest decline in overall mobile user base till now. All the operators lost subscribers during the month. Market leader Bharti Airtel's subscriber base was down by 2.8 million while Vodafone lost 2.3 million.
Mobile operators have been steadily losing subscribers over the past few months. This is because they are now ejecting inactive users out of the network. Subscribers who do not use their phones for more than 60 days are being disconnected.
This is a far cry from the time when operators were dumping SIMs in the market in the race to ramp up subscriber base. A higher subscriber base allowed them to take more spectrum from the Government. Nearly 30 per cent of the connections were inactive.