Idea Cellular Leads Subscriber Additions In December
Idea Cellular beats Airtel, Vodafone in net subscriber addition.
Six telecom operators, including Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular, added a net 8.18 million subscribers in December to take the total number of users to 809.99 million. The operators had added 10.19 million users on a net basis in November last year, data released by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) on Monday showed.
"Growth of the telecom industry correlates with the overall growth in the country as telecommunication services are the backbone of the economy. Despite immense financial strain on the industry, the industry has still added the numbers in December 2016," Director General of COAI, Rajan S Mathews said in a statement.
The growth of subscribers in December, among the six mobile operators, was led by Idea Cellular which added 2.84 subscribers taking its total subscriber base to 190.52 million.
It was followed by Bharti Airtel which added 2.5 million subscribers during the month to take its total subscriber base to 265.85 million mobile subscribers. Vodafone added 1.9 million new subscribers to its user base which 204.69 million at end-December. Telenor added 0.72 million new customers, Aircel 0.2 million while that MTNL subscriber growth remained flat, according to COAI’s data.
The UP East circle added the maximum number of subscribers (74.90 million) in December, the data showed.
"The continuous growth is a testament to the importance which citizens accord to mobile services which have today emerged as an essential part of our daily lives," Mathews said.
