Major telecom players cross 776 million subscriber base mark

After witnessing a degrowth for two successive months, the net subscriber base of six major telecom operators grew by 3.5 million to reach 776.97 million users in June 2016. “Total number of GSM subscribers as of June 2016 reached 776.97 million” and “the GSM subscribers increased by 3.50 million in June 2016,” industry body Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) said in its subscriber report released today.The COAI shared data of six telecom operators Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular, Aircel, Telenor and MTNL, which jointly account for about 70 per cent of Indian mobile market share. In April and May, the net subscriber base of these company declined 0.22 and 0.24 million, respectively. COAI’s data in May reported increase in net subscriber base which it later corrected.Airtel led the growth among these players by adding 1.4 million new customers taking its total mobile subscriber base to 255.73 million. It was followed by Vodafone and Aircel who added 0.7 million new customers each, Idea Cellular 0.69 million, Telenor 0.03 million and MTNL 0.01 million new users. COAI report did not include data of Reliance Communications, Tata Teleservices and BSNL who also operate mobile network using GSM technology.PTI