With 300 mn wireless telecom users, India now 2nd only to China

Last month Trai had projected that India would surpass the US to become the second largest wireless network with a subscriber base of over 300 million by April. But it has reached that status a month ahead.

The total GSM user base has reached 192.3 million at end-March, up from 185.0 million in February, a growth of about 4 per cent.

According to the COAI figures, Bharti Airtel has the highest market share of 32.2 per cent with 2.3 million subscriber additions during the month, taking its total subscriber base to over 61 million. Vodafone-Essar followed with a 23.2 per cent market share and an addition of over 15 million, claiming a cumulative subscriber base of 44 million. State-owned BSNL held a market share of 18.82 per cent and added over 7 million customers to its network, reaching a total of 36 million subscribers, while MTNL added close to 120,000 new subscribers and expanded its user base to 3.5 million.

Smaller towns are fuelling growth in mobile telephony.

GSM line-up

Airtel Share 32.20%

March adds 2.3 m

Vodafone Share 23.20%

March adds 15.0 m

BSNL Share 18.82%

March adds 7.0 m

Not satisfied? You’ll get to flip operators

NEW DELHI: Mobile number portability would become a reality by June next year if the government accepts the Trai recommendation. Earlier, DoT had said that MNP would be implemented in the metro cities by the year-end. The Trai recommendation sent to DoT on Friday have said that an operator should be selected through bidding to run MNP.