The telecom industry witnessed the highest-ever addition of 9.22 million wireless subscribers in July, as against 8.94 million in the previous month.
The total user base now stands at 296.08 million in the country, said the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).
However, wireline or fixed line connections fell by 0.16 million, pulling down the overall increase in telephone connections to 9.06 million in the month under review, according to data released by the telecom regulator.
In the wireless segment, Bharti Airtel led the subscriber growth with the addition of 3.69 million subscribers in July to take its wireless subscriber base to 72.07 million. Vodafone-Essar came in second with a total of 1.76 million addition resulting in a subscriber base of 50.95 million.
Meanwhile, Reliance Communications added 1.75 million subscribers in the wireless segment to reach 52.54 million, while TataTeleServices added about 1 million to about 27.33 million subscribers.
The fixed line segment, however, pulled the total subscriber base as it declined from 38.92 million in June to 38.76 million in July. The robust growth in the wireless customer base has led to better telecom penetration in the country as the total teledensity rose from 28.33 per cent to 29.08 per cent in the month under review.
The broadband penetration has also witnessed a steady increase with the total broadband subscriber base crossing the 4.5-million mark to reach 4.57 million in July, as against 4.38 million by the end of June.
