Indian telecom subscriber base - July report

* In July, mobile operators, both GSM (global system for mobile communications) and CDMA (code division multiple access) together, added 9.22 million subscribers, which is the highest ever additions in a single month till now. The previous best was 8.94 million in June.

* Bharti Airtel with 2.69 million new subscribers was the biggest gainer during the month. Vodafone Essar added 1.7 million new subscribers while Reliance Communication got 1.5 million new CDMA subscribers. Both Idea Cellular and Tata Teleservices added just over a million wireless users in July.

* In the fixedline segment, the subscriber base has decreased further to 38.76 million as against 38.92 million subscribers in June as subscribers prefer to take a mobile connection. However, there are no signs of a revival though industry experts reckon that introduction of services like broadband and IPTV could improve the business case for fixed line telephony.

* The broadband subscriber base has reached 4.57 million with 19 lakh new subscribers in July. Broadband user base has almost doubled from 2.47 million in July 2007.

Source: Businessline