50 lakh new mobile users in March 2006
11 Apr 2006
The mobile telecom industry has recorded its best ever performance in the month of March 2006 by adding more than 50 lakh new subscribers in a month for the first time. The GSM operators have made bulk of the additions.
GSM mobile telecom operators added a total of 37.8 lakh new subscribers for the month of March 2006, compared to 31.7 lakh added for February 2006. This is the highest-ever monthly subscriber addition for the industry. The total GSM subscriber base expanded by 5.92 per cent, month-on-month over February 2006, to a total of 6.91 crore.
While Bharti added more than 10 lakh customers for the third successive month, BSNL also added more than 10 lakh subscribers after the below par performance in February. BSNL had added more than 10 lakh new subscribers in January 2006.
Market shares of the four largest operators remained mostly unchanged as all of them posted almost similar growth rates.
| Operator | Total subscribers in crore - Mar 06 | Total subscribers in crore - Feb 06 | Mar 06 additions in lakh | Market share in % |
| Bharti | 1.96 | 1.85 | 10.1 | 28 |
| BSNL | 1.72 | 1.61 | 10.1 | 25 |
| Hutch | 1.67 | 1.58 | 9 | 24 |
| Idea | 0.74 | 0.7 | 4 | 11 |
CDMA operators have added 12.5 lakh new subscribers during the month of March as compared to 11.1 lakh during the month of February. Most of the additions have once again been accounted by Reliance Infocomm.
.jpg "CBDT explains Budget proposal on capital gains tax")
