India adds 8.9 mln GSM mobile users in June

Reuters - Indian GSM mobile operators added 8.89 million users in June, taking the total user base to 315.8 million, data from the Cellular Operators' Association of India showed on Monday.

The pace of monthly additions on the dominant mobile platform picked up from 8.3 million added in May, but was still slower than April's 8.97 million and March's 10.8 million.

Top mobile operator Bharti Airtel's June additions at 2.82 million were little changed from the previous month, but third-ranked Vodafone Essar saw a dip in June user adds to 2.37 million from 2.54 million in May.

No.5 Idea Cellular accelerated additions to 1.61 million in June from 1.3 million in May.

The data for June does not include Reliance Communications Ltd, India's second-largest mobile operator, which reports figures separately. But total GSM subscribers include Reliance's GSM users at the end of May.

Reliance Communications, which had 77.22 million subscribers at end-May, expanded its GSM mobile services to all the service areas of the country in January, but the majority of its customers are still on rival CDMA technology.

Tata Teleservices, in which Japan's NTT DoCoMo owns a 26 percent stake, also operates on CDMA and its monthly additions are reported separately. The company has recently launched GSM services.