India's cellular subscriber base has reached 5.5 million ending December 2001, according to a COAI release. The year ended with an addition of 254019 cellular subscribers during the month of December taking the cumulative cellular base to 5478932 i.e. nearly 5.5 million as of December 31,2001.
December month additions were similar to the levels prevalent in August and September 2001 and represent an improvement of about 20% on the additions during November / October 2001. During December 2001 only ‘C’ type circles registered a reduced number of monthly additions whereas all other categories,- Metros as well as ‘A and ‘B’ circles showed higher monthly additions. The year 2002 has witnessed 76% growth in Cumulative All India subscriber numbers as compared to the year 2000. During 2001 circle ‘C’ networks grew highest at 110% followed by circle ‘A’ at 90.5% then Metros 81% and lastly circle ‘B’ at 50%.
One interesting development was that cellular subscriber figures for December show that MTNL added 23,000-plus, more subscribers than the two private Orange and BPL combined together. Orange added 11,292 while and BPL managed to add 10,970.