Indian telecom subscriber crosses 90 crore: TRAI

Registering a marginal growth, Indian telecom subscriber base crossed 90 crore-mark in May this year after almost two years.

The base grew by 0.34 percent to reach 90.005 crore, according to TRAI data.

This is the second time the subscriber base is breaching the 90 crore-mark. Earlier in June 2012, it had touched 96.55 crore. Since then the base has been shrinking steadily. The first time it crossed the 90 crore-mark was in September 2011.

"The number of telephone subscribers in India increased to 900.05 million at the end of May, 2013 from 897.02 million at the end of April 2013, thereby showing a monthly growth rate of 0.34 percent," TRAI said in a report Friday.

Mobile or wireless subscriber base increased from 86.7 crore in April 2013 to 87 crore at the end of May 2013, registering a monthly growth of 0.37 percent.

Reliance Communications led the growth in mobile business by adding over 12 lakh new customers, followed by Vodafone with over 9 lakh new customers, Idea Cellular 8.67 lakh, Airtel 8.51 lakh, Aircel 2.77 lakh new customers.

New operator Videocon saw maximum growth in percentage terms during the month. The mobile subscriber base of Videocon grew by 6.79 percent to 22.85 lakhs in May from 21.39 in previous month.

State-run BSNL and MTNL lost 9 lakh and 97,583 customers respectively in May taking their total customer base to 9.80 crore and 48 lakhs respectively.

Bharti Airtel maintained its lead in overall market share with total subscriber base of over 18.96 crore. Airtel leadership was followed by Vodafone with over 15.46 crore customers. RCom and Idea Cellular's total customer base stood very close to each other at 12.48 crore and 12.37 crore respectively.