GSM subscriber base touched 8 million in December2008
Despite economic slowdown, acute progress is noticed in the telecom industry. In that line, in December 2008 alone, the GSM subscriber base has touched 8 million. According to the latest data released by Cellular Operators’ Association of India, the total GSM subscriber base rose to 257,85 million, up from 249.35 million ( the growth rate is 8.5 million) in November 2008, a growth of about 3.25 per cent in December.
Bharti Airtel and Vodafone dominate the sector. At large, Airtel sweeps the growth rate to a bigger share. The state-owned operators (like BSNL, MTNL) continued to lose their market share to the private operators (like Airtel, Vodafone)
Telcom Service Provider – Total Subsriber Base for the company – Market Share (in Percentage)
Airtel – 85.65 million – 33.22 per cent
Vodafone – 61 million – 23.57 per cent.
Idea Cellular added 1 million subscribers during the same period taking its total subscriber base to 38 million. BSNL, the state-owned operator, experienced a positive growth in December taking its subscriber base to 41 million. The company added about 8.7 lakh subscribers during the month (despite losing the market share from 16.24 to 16.05 %). While MTNL, which operates in Delhi and Mumbai, added over 78,500 subscribers to its total base taking it to 3.9 million.
Thus, India continues to enjoy this privilege of being the world’s fastest growing mobile phone market.