MTNL lost GSM subscribers when every private telco gained in June

New Delhi: When all telcos are gaining new subscribers, MTNL stands out by losing some. As per data released by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), MTNL lost 9000 subscribers in June when all other telcos gained and the only other state owned telco, BSNL, neither lost nor gained any new subscribers.

In June, Airtel and Idea Cellular were neck and neck in subscriber addition this June, when the industry overall added 3.57 million new mobile phone users. June became the fourth straight month of subscriber growth since February, when the number of additions had declined.

According to COAI, Vodafone added only a fourth of the subscribers which Bharti and Idea individually managed to add in June. Vodafone added just 0.35 million new subscribers in June against 0.91 million in May; Airtel added 1.26 million (0.85 million in May) whereas Idea added 1.21 million (0.87 million in May). In June, total industry subscriber base rose to 671.1 million from 667.6 million. As we said earlier, BSNL did not add a single new subscriber whereas MTNL lost 0.09 million subscribers on GSM network.

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But Videocon has seen the maximum growth in percentage terms in June, with subscriber addition of almost 6% compared to May - because of a smaller subscriber base. In fact, the smaller players - Videocon, Uninor and MTNL together account for just over 6% of the market, leaving BSNL with close to 15% of the market and Aircel another 9%. With growing buzz of market consolidation among smaller players, the market share pie may soon look very different though.

In June, Videocon added 0.13 million subscribers, Uninor added 0.3 million, Aircel added 0.61 million subscribers.

Subscriber numbers had dipped in November last year when cleaning up buy telcos lead to a sharp decline in subscriber numbers for almost all operators. April was the first month after November 2012 when total industry subscriber numbers crossed the November mark. Total industry subscribers fell by a huge margin in November and December before inching up marginally in January but again fell in February.