India GSM user base falls in November

India's GSM operators lost 9.38 million subscribers in November, taking the total subscriber base to 663.78 million, with none of the service providers adding a single user during the month.

The erosion, a fall of 1.34 per cent from the October 2012, was attributed to disconnections by operators.

For the last couple of months, barring October, telecom companies have been steadily losing customers following disconnection of inactive subscribers. The companies were disconnecting users who were inactive for more than 60 days from their networks.

The top three operators - Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular - lost nearly 6.74 million users in November, according to the data released Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI).

These operators account for more than 67 per cent of the total GSM market share.

Bharti Airtel lost 2.80 million users, depleting its total to 183.61 million as of 30 November 2012, even though it maintained its leadership position with a 27.66 per cent market share.

Vodafone India lost 2.38 million users during the month under review, and posted a total of 150.77 million users, while it maintained its second-rung slot with a 22.71 per cent market share.

The Aditya Birla group company, Idea Cellular, lost 1.56 million users taking its total subscriber base to 114.14 million. The country's fourth largest operator had a market share of 17.20 per cent.

Aircel lost 1.46 million users, Uninor 4.37 lakh and Videocon 3.8 million users in November. In October, the operators added about 2.40 lakh users, arresting a two-month fall and increasing the total subscriber to 671.91 million.

In October, COAI members added 2.40 lakh subscribers, arresting the slide occurred during the previous two months and taking the total subscriber base to 671.91 million users.