The growth in cellular subscriptions dipped roughly 13 per cent in February with 593,000 new users compared to an average monthly addition of 675,000 in the last three months, according to data released by the Cellular Operators Association of India.
Though this is not the first time month-on-month subscription growth has slowed this financial year, industry analysts attribute the February dip to the introduction of Reliance Infocomm's competitively priced limited mobility service.
The total subscriber base has, however, increased 5.31 per cent from 111.63 lakh (11.16 million) in January to 117.56 lakh (11.75 million) in February and is on course to touch 120 lakh (12 million) by March.
The year-on-year subscription growth to February, however, has been been a substantial 94 per cent.
Among the additions in February, the biggest gainer has been state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd, which added 300,000 new users in the non-city circles.
This is, however, lower than the 475,000 new cell users that BSNL added the previous month.
In the city circles, service providers added 127,000 new users, 3.06 per cent higher than the previous month. There were 42.9 lakh (4.3 million) cell users in the metro circles at the end of February. Delhi was still the largest market with 17.4 lakh (1.74 million) subscribers and Airtel was the single largest operator with 860,000 users in Delhi.
Private operators have added only 160,000 new users in February. This is however 60,000 more than what the private operators added in January.
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