Vodafone Essar moves behind Bharti Airtel, pushes BSNL to third spot

Mumbai: Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), the country's top telecom PSU, has been pushed to No 3 slot in the global systems for mobile communications (GSM) subscriber base with Vodafone Essar taking the second spot behind top telco Bharti Airtel.

While BSNL added only 1.55 million subscribers from the end of March to the end of July 2007, market leader Bharti has grown by 7.6 million and Vodafone Essar (earlier Hutch) by 6 million, according to the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI).

Idea Cellular and Aircel have added 2.99 million and 1.65 million users, respectively.

Bharti's GSM market share has grown to 31.58 per cent in July-end from 30.59 per cent in March-end.

Vodafone has grown to 22.88 per cent from the 21.78 per cent earlier; BSNL to 22.59 per cent from 20.44 per cent; Idea to 12 per cent from 11.54 per cent; Aircel to 5.05 per cent from 4.54 per cent; and Spice to 2.32 per cent from 2.25 per cent.