According to the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), the total GSM subscriber base grew by 0.66 per cent, from 711.55 million subscribers in end-April 2015 to 716.24 million subscribers at the end-May 2015.  This is the slowest growth registered in last six months.

Bharti Airtel maintained leadership with maximum subscriber base of 229.44 million. In terms of net addition of new customers, Idea Cellular added 1.26 million new customers in May 2015, the highest among the GSM telecom operators. Idea was followed by Airtel which added 1.19 million new customers. Meanwhile, Uninor witnessed an addition of 0.93 million subscribers and Vodafone added only 0.43 million subscribers during the given period.

Videocon Telecom registered highest growth rate of 2.1 per cent in subscriber base at 7.46 million in May as compared with previous month. Videocon added 0.15 million new subscribers while Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited added 0.01 million new customers in May 2015.

Uttar Pradesh (East) added 1.05 million subscribers, highest among all 22 telecom circles, and was the circle with maximum number of GSM subscribers as of end-May 2015.