GSM players add 23.3 lakh rural subscribers in June 2013, up 0.9%

Wireless subscriber base had been reducing from past few months in India. While rural teledensity is picking pace, of late. GSM operators in India added 23.3 lakh new rural subscribers in June 2013, up by 0.9 per cent from the previous month, according to the Cellular Operators Association of India's (COAI) monthly report.

The total GSM rural subscriber user base has risen to 27.16 crore as of June 2013, said the industry body COAI.

According to the report, Airtel has added over 12.6 lakh rural users in June to take its total subscriber base to 8.59 crore in rural India.

Idea Cellular has added 8.8 lakh rural subscribers during the month. It now has rural subscriber base of 6.87 crore.

Aircel added 3 lakh customers taking its subscriber base to 2.27 crore, while Uninor added 1.7 lakh new users to take its rural subscriber base to 1.02 crore at the end of June 2013.

Country's third largest operator Vodafone India has lost 2.8 lakh users and it has a rural subscriber base of 8.40 crore.

Circle-wise, the highest addition was in Uttar Pradesh (East) where circle has the maximum rural subscribers at 2.91 crore.

The rural wireless teledensity stood at 39.89 per cent as on April 2013. While the rural wireline teledensity is 22.07%.