Telecom operators added 13.35 million mobile subscribers in May 2011, taking the total number of telephone users in the country to 874.68 million, sectoral regulator TRAI said on Thursday.

According to the data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), mobile subscriber base increased to 840.28 million at the end of May from 826.93 million in the preceding month, registering a growth of 1.61%.

With this, the overall teledensity (telephones per 100 people) in India reached 70.23%.

However, the number of active mobile subscribers, according to the visitor location register (VLR) data, during the month of was only 588.13 million.
VLR numbers provide details on active customers at any given point of time, excluding switched-off and out-of-the- coverage area customers.

The growth in the wireless category was led by Reliance Communications which added 2.50 million users, taking its subscriber base to 141.16 million by the end of May 2011.

Bharti Airtel added 2.45 million subscribers, taking its user base to 167.06 million. Vodafone added 2.44 million new customers to take user base to 139.42 million.

Idea Cellular and Aircel added 1.80 million and 1.11 million users respectively, during the period. Tata Teleservices added 0.39 million users in May.

State-run telcos BSNL and MTNL added 0.82 million and 27,952 new subscribers in May.

Wireline category continued to lose customers, with the subscriber base declining to 34.40 million at the end of May from 34.55 million in April, TRAI said.

Broadband subscription reached 12.12 million in the reported month from 12.01 million in April, growing 0.92%.