New Delhi, July 31: Cellular subscriber base across the country has grown by 16 per cent during the first three months of the current financial year and stood at 21.8 lakh as on June 30, according to the data released by Cellular Operatros Associations of India (COAI).Total cellular subscriber base has stood at 21,81,807 on July 1, 2000 against 18,84,311 on April 1, COAI said.
Delhi outpaced Mumbai in the growth of subscriber base with 3.55 lakh connections, while Mumbai has only 3.51 cellphone connections. Calcutta has over 1.06 lakh mobile users, while Chennai has only 66,072 users.
Among the operators, Bharti Cellular in Delhi has the maximum number of mobile users with 2.01 lakh followed by BPL Mobile in Mumbai with 1.88 lakh users. It is followed by Hutchison Max in Mumbai with 1.62 lakh connections and Sterling Cellular in Delhi with 1.54 lakh connections.
Among the metros, Chennai showed the poorest growth rate with hardly 66,072 users between the two operators. RPG Cellular has 37,708 connections and Skycell has only 28,364 users.
Among the `A' category circles, Gujarat appeared promising with 1.56 lakh connections, followed by Karnataka with 1.47 lakh connections. Among the `B' class circles, Kerala and Uttar Pradesh (East) have maximum number of users with 1.43 lakh and 1.33 lakh connections respectively. Of the `C' class circles, Bihar has the highest number of users with 27,245 connections.
Copyright © 2000 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.