GSM subscriber base reached 444 mn in May: COAI

As per figures released by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) on GSM subscribers for May, about 11 million new subscribers were added in the month, taking the GSM subscriber base to 444 million.
The figures also show that Uninor, a relatively new telecom operator in the industry, has reduced more than 8,000 subscribers in the month of May. According to a press statement released by Uninor today, “Uninor has declared a subscriber base of 5.01 million as of end of May. This is lower than the subscriber numbers reported for April by 8,722, resulting from the purging of data pertaining to inactive SIMs from the overall subscriber count. Inactive SIMs have been defined as those where no call, SMS, data usage or recharge activity has occurred over the past 60 days.”
In May, maximum new subscribers were added from circle B at 4.4 million. Circle A registered about 3.3 million additions, followed by circle C at 1.9 million and metros at 1.7 million.
According to COAI, UP (East) registered the maximum additional subscribers at almost 1.4 million. This was followed by Tamil Nadu (excluding Chennai) with over 950,000 additions, Andhra Pradesh with over 830,000 new subscribers, Mumbai with 780,000 and Bihar with 7.5 new subscribers.
Among operators, Bharti Airtel, with an additional three million subscribers, remained on top with a total subscriber base of about 133 million. Vodafone registered over 2.6 million new subscribers, followed by Aircel at 1.6 million, Idea Cellular at 1.4 million and BSNL at one million new subscribers.
New entrants, S Tel and Etisalat DB added over 120,000 and 5,000 subscribers respectively.
According to TRAI, circle A consists of Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu (including Chennai), Maharashtra and Goa. Circle B comprises Punjab, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Kerala, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh (East), Uttar Pradesh (West), West Bengal, Sikkim and Lakshadweep. Circle C comprises Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Assam, the North East, Jammu & Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh. The metros are Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata.