India's telecom subscribers crossed the 101 mark crore this August

Indian telecom subscribers crossed the 101 crore mark in August with an increase in mobile phone users, data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has revealed.

The wireless or mobile subscriber base in the country grew by half a per cent to 98.86 crore in August from 98.32 crore in July. Out of the total wireless subscriber base, 88.59 crore customers were found active.

"The number of telephone subscribers in India increased from 1,009.31 million at the end of July 2015 to 1,014.70 million at the end of August 2015, thereby showing a monthly growth rate of 0.53%," the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) said in its monthly subscribers report.

The growth in mobile users was led by telecom major Bharti Airtel with a net subscriber addition of 13.12 lakh in August, followed by Idea Cellular with 11.67 lakh users, Vodafone saw an increase of 11.27 lakh, while Tata Teleservices bagged 8.25 lakh new customers. Other telecom providers who enjoyed a rise in their net subscribers include BSNL (8.12 lakh), Telenor (3.9 lakh), Aircel (3.84 lakh), Videocon Telecom - with Quadrant (1.16 lakh) and MTNL with 18,132 subscribers.

Sistema Shyam and Reliance Communications, both companies that are in process of consolidation, lost 1.82 lakh and 4.91 lakh users, respectively.Reliance Communications saw the maximum erosion in subscriber base in Bihar where its right to use 900 Mhz spectrum (2G) expires this December.

However, the subscriber base of landline, or wireless, connections continued its decline despite public sector BSNL and MTNL offering free calling schemes. In the landline segment Bharti Airtel was biggest gainer, while state-run BSNL was biggest loser in August.

Landline connections in the country fell from 2.61 crore in July to 2.60 crore at the end of August.The number of broadband subscribers increased to 11.73 crore at the end of August, with a monthly growth rate of 3.55% compared to 11.33 crore in July.

In the month of August, a total of 43 lakh subscribers submitted their requests for mobile number portability service taking the cumulative requests to 17.22 crore.With PTI inputs