India adds 8.81 million phones in June; subscriber base swells to 326 million

Mumbai: India added 8.81 million telephone connections (wireline and wireless) in June 2008, taking the total subscription base in the country to 325.78 million, up from 316.97 million in the previous one month, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said in a release.

The number of new telephone connections rose to 8.81 in June from 8.46 million  in May, according to data released by the TRAI.

The number of new wireless connections grew by a record 8.94 million during June as compared to 8.62 million in May. Total wireless customer base (GSM, CDMA & WLL (F)) reached 286.86 million by 30 June.
 
The net addition in the month of May stood at 8.62 million.

The number of wireline subscribers, however, continued to fall. The the subscriber base fell 0.3 per cent to 38.92 million in June from 39.05 million subscribers in May.

The overall tele-density in the country rose to 28.33 per cent  as of end-June as against 27.59 per cent in May 2008.

Total broadband connections in the country rose to 4.38 million in June with the addition of  110,000 subscribers in June. The numbers stood at 4.15 million in March, Trai data showed. 

Bharti Airtel added over 2.5 million subscribers in June to take its subscriber base to 69.38 million, up 3.8 per cent from 66.83 million in March. Reliance Communications gained 1.7 million new subscribers taking the total to 50.79 million by end-June.

Vodafone also added an equal number and Idea Cellular added 1.05 million while of Spice Communications (recently merged with Idea Cellular) rose by 50,000 to 4.55 million.