Cellphone subscriber base grew under 1% in Aug: Trai

New Delhi: India’s mobile phone subscriber base grew by just 0.86 percent in August with the addition of 7.34 million new connections, taking the total number of wireless users in the country to 865.71 million, according to

telecom regulator Trai.

Videocon saw the decline in its subscriber base in July accelerate in August. The company lost 6.52 lakh customers in August, much more than the 95,010 users it lost in the month of July. S-Tel also lost over 67,000 subscribers during the month.

[caption id=“attachment_112752” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“The total telecom subscriber base of the country stood at 899.78 million. Reuters”]  [/caption]

The total telecom subscriber base of the country stood at

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899.78 million at the end of August, taking overall teledensity to 74.96 (telecom connections per 100 people), a

statement issued by Trai today said.

The number of wireline subscribers in the country reduced to 34.07 million in August from 34.18 million in July, it added.

There was marginal increase in India’s broadband subscriber base to 12.69 million in August from 12.50 million in July.

During August, about 18.06 million subscribers made requests to change their operators while retaining their phone numbers through Mobile Number Portability (MNP).

The top three telecom circles where mobile phone users opted for MNP were Gujarat, with 1.7 million requests, followed by Maharashtra (1.47 million) and Karnataka (1.4 million).

However, the number of active mobile subscribers during August, according to visitor location register (VLR) data, was 608.63 million.

VLR numbers provide details on active customers at any given point of time, excluding switched-off and out-of-coverage area customers.

Growth in the wireless category was led by Idea Cellular, which added 2.33 million users, taking its subscriber base to 98.44 million at the end of August, 2011.

Reliance Communications, which was the telecom sector leader in the month of July in terms of new subscriber additions, slipped to the number two position in terms of new user registrations during August, adding 1.27 million new users to take its total customer base to over 146.06 million.

Bharti Airtel was third in the list of subscriber additions, registering 1.15 million new connections in August, taking its user base to 171.84 million.

Vodafone added 1.13 million new customers during the month, taking its user base to 144.14 million. Aircel added over 0.6 million users during the period.

State-run telco BSNL added 0.26 million new users, taking its total subscriber base to 95.41 million.

Struggling state-run telecom company MTNL also saw more users register for its service in August. The company added over 30,000 new subscribers during the month, taking its total wireless customer base to 5.55 million.

PTI