In COAI (Cellular Operators Association of India) has released its report on GSM subscriber figures for the month of June. Though growth continues, the rate of growth is slowing down and that should be a cause for concern for the industry. It was in May that the GSM operators had for the first time since October 2009 added less than 10 million new subscribers. The actual number of new GSM users added for May 2011 was 9.53 million. But in June the number of new subscribers is even less, at around 8.5 million.
In November last year the GSM operators had added a whopping 17.16 million new users.
Bharti Airtel continues to be the largest player in the market, with a market share of 28.26 percent. The company added 2,120,958 new subscribers, and now its user base has touched 169,186,247. Bhartis closest rival is Vodafone, which added 2,093,071 new users and has a market share of 23.63%. The number three company in the GSM space is the Aditya Birla group firm Idea Cellular, which added 1,354,054 new users and has a market share of 15.88%.
The government owned company BSNL has a market share off 14.77% and is the fourth largest operator in terms of subscriber numbers. Another government owned entity in the telecom space, MTNL, managed to add just 1,597 new users. MTNLs market share is less than one percent. Aircel is at number five with market share of 9.68%. Even though Reliance Communications is also active in GSM space, COAI has avoided coming out with the companys numbers for the month of June.
Add new comment