Telecom operators added a whopping 20.2 million mobile subscribers in February 2011, taking the total number of telephone users in the country to 826.25 million, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) said today.
According to a data released by the Trai, the mobile subscriber base increased to 791.38 million at the end of February from 771.18 million in the preceding month, registering a growth of 2.62%.
With this, the overall teledensity (telephones per 100 people) in India reached 69.29%.
However, the number of active mobile subscribers, according to the visitor location register (VLR) data, during the month of was only 562.98 million.
VLR numbers provide details on active customers at any given point of time, excluding switched-off and out-of-the- coverage area customers.
The growth in the wireless category was led by Vodafone which added 3.5 million users, taking its subscriber base to 130.92 million by end of February 2011.
Bharti Airtel added 3.2 million subscribers, taking its user base to 158.99 million. Idea Cellular and Aircel added 2.5 million and 1.66 million users respectively.
Reliance Communications (RCom) added 3.3 million subscribers, while Tata Teleservices added 1.6 million users in February.
State-run telcos BSNL and MTNL added 1.4 million and 22,532 new subscribers in February.
Wireline category continued to lose customers, with the subscriber base declining to 34.87 million at the end of February from 34.94 million in the previous month, Trai said.
Broadband subscription reached 11.47 million in the reported month from 11.21 million in January, growing 2.34%.
