GSM subscriber base nears 45 mn

Inching towards the 50 million mark, the GSM subscriber base in India touched 44.92 million in June 2005 adding 1.57 million users with telecom operator Bharti enjoying a marketshare of over 27%.

GSM cellular user base grew from 43.35 million in May to 44.92 million in June 2005, representing a growth of 3.50% in the month under review, figures released by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) said. GSM operators had added 1.22 million users in May.

Bharti touched a subscriber base of 12.25 million adding 0.45 million new users in the month capturing a marketshare of 27.28% followed by state-owned BSNL at 10.23 million with the addition of 0.35 million users. BSNL has a marketshare of 22.77% in June.

Hutch comes third with a subscriber base of 8.44 million out of which 0.25 million were added in June. The operator enjoys a marketshare of 18.79%.

Idea Cellular had a subscriber base of 5.55 million in June and added 0.17 million new users in the month taking its marketshare to 12.36% followed by BPL with a marketshare of 5.85% and a subscriber base of 2.62 million. It added 0.1 million subscribers in June.

Aircel's user base stood at 1.79 million with a marketshare of 4.15% followed by Spice at 1.47 million and a marketshare of 3.28%.

Reliance's GSM user base touched 1.23 million and its marketshare reached 3.03% in June while telecom PSU MTNL had 1.04 million subscribers with a marketshare of 2.48%.

Category A,B and C subscribers grew by 3.36%, 4.31% and 8.13% respectively over the previous month while metro subscribers grew by 2.12%.

Metros constituted 25.97% of the total market. Circles A,B and C constitute 36.17%, 31.21% and 6.58% of the total market respectively.

Delhi continues to be the leading cellular market with 4.34 million subscribers accounting for 9.66% of the total market, closely followed by Mumbai with 4.17 million subscribers accounting for 9.28% of the total market, COAI said.