India added 22.62 mn mobile users in December

NEW DELHI, INDIA: India added 22.62 million mobile phone subscribers in December, taking the total number of cellular users in the country to 752.19 million till Dec 31, official data said.

According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the wireless phone user base grew 3.10 per cent in December 2010, from 729.57 million in November.

But the report said that in December the total number of active subscribers was only 529.22 million.

The growth in wireless phone category was led by Reliance Communication with an addition of 3.3 million users, 14.54 percent of the country's net addition in December, taking its user base to 125.65 million.

Telecom giant Bharti Airtel followed next with an addition of over 3.1 million subscribers accounting for 13.71 per cent of the net addition in December, taking its total number of subscribers to 152.5 million

Vodafone stood at the third spot with an addition of 3 million subscribers, taking its total subscriber base to 124.26 million. State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) added 2.98 million subscribers and thus has 86.71 million subscribers.

Other telecom players such as Idea Cellular performed remarkably well with the addition of 2.95 million users, closely followed by Uninor, which added 2.31 million users. This took their total subscriber base to 81.78 million and 18.51 million respectively.

According to the data, the broadband subscriber base grew 1.88 per cent from 10.71 million in November to 10.92 million in December 2010.

However, the wireline segment declined marginally from 35.19 million in November to 35.09 million at the end of December 2010.