Bharti ropes in more subscribers in Nov

Bharti Tele-Ventures, which offers its services under the Airtel brand, topped the GSM chart with the highest number of subscribers, even as it garnered a 27.87 per cent market share in November 2005.

The company had around 1.5 crore customers, followed by BSNL at 1.32 crore (with a market share of 24.02 per cent), according to the latest data collated by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI).

Hutch with a 19.31 per cent market share and a subscriber base of 1.06 crore and Idea with a 11.23 per cent market share and 62.10 lakh users were the next in line.

While the Hutchison Essar-promoted BPL registered 28.68 lakh GSM subscribers with a 5.19 per cent market share, Shivsankaran-owned Aircel saw 22.28 lakh subscribers with a market share of 4.03 per cent.

Interestingly, CDMA major Reliance Infocomm's GSM arm - Reliance Telecom - captured 16.23 lakh GSM subscribers with market share of 2.94 per cent, while Spice Telecom managed to garner 2.81 per cent with 15.53 lakh subscriber base.

State-owned Mahanagar Telecom Nigam Ltd (MTNL) claimed 2.61 per cent market share with 14.43 lakh GSM subscribers.

According to COAI, the total GSM subscriber base registered 4.39 per cent growth at 5.53 crore during the month compared with 5.29 crore subscribers in October.

Bharti Tele has marked clear growth in four metros and including A, B and C circles. The company has garnered a decent growth in the north-east too, COAI data said. The subscriber base of BSNL grew in two metros and almost all states except Maharashtra state. The GSM subscriber base remain stagnant in the state at 10,560,53 while the state-controlled company has increased its number in North-East region.

Hutch clocked better growth in Punjab circle along with all four metros.