Mobile phone user base expands by 6.67 mn in July

New Delhi: Mobile phone subscriber base in India grew by just 0.78 per cent with addition of 6.67 million new connections in July taking the total number of wireless users to 858.27 million, according to telecom regulator TRAI.

Tata Teleservices lost 2.67 million users in July, while Videocon lost 95,010 users, impacting the industry's performance.

The total telecom subscriber base stood at 892.55 million at the end of July taking the overall teledensity to 74.44 (telecom connections per 100 people ), a TRAI statement on Friday said.

The wireline subscribers reduced to 34.18 million in July from 34.29 million in June, it added.

There was marginal increase in broadband subscriber base in July to 12.50 million from 12.32 million in June. At the end of July, about 15.54 million subscribers requested to change their operators through Mobile Number Portability (MNP).

Top three telecom circles where mobile phone users opted for MNP were Gujarat with 1.5 million request, followed by Maharashtra (1.2 million) and Karnataka (1.1 million).

However, the number of active mobile subscribers, according to the visitor location register (VLR) data, during July was 601.73 million.

VLR numbers provide details on active customers at any given point of time, excluding switched-off and out-of-the-coverage area customers.

The growth in the wireless category was led by Reliance Communications which added 1.52 million users, taking its subscriber base to 144.78 million by the end of July 2011.

Bharti Airtel added 1.51 million subscribers, taking its user base to 170.69 million. Vodafone added 1.49 million new customers taking its user base to 143.01 million.

Idea Cellular and Aircel added one million and 0.60 million users respectively, during the period. State-run telcos BSNL added 1.42 million new users taking it total subscriber base to 95.14 million.

Struggling state-run telecom company MTNL regained growth in addition of new mobile phone subscribers. The company added 25,578 new subscriber taking its total wireless customer base to 5.52 million. In June, MTNL had lost 2,340 subscribers.