Bharti adds 2.5 mln Indian mobile users in March

Reuters:Top Indian mobile phone carrier Bharti Airtel signed up 2.5 million subscribers in March, its highest monthly addition in a year, partly helped by a court order revoking the licenses of its smaller rivals over a corruption scandal.

Carriers including Telenor and Sistema’s India units, Idea Cellular and Tata Teleservices are set to lose some or all of their zonal telecom permits after India’s Supreme Court in February ordered cancellation of all licences awarded in a scandal-tainted 2008 sale.

Analysts expect older and established firms such as Bharti to benefit if some players exit the ferociously-competitive 15-player market. The affected carriers have the option of bidding in a state auction to win back the permits, but not all are expected to bid.

Bharti boosted its total subscribers in India to 181.3 million as of end-March, data from the Cellular Operators Association showed. This is the highest monthly addition for Bharti since March 2011, when it had signed up 3.2 million users.It added 1.8 million subscribers in February and additions were on average 1.5 million a month in 11 months to February.

Mobile phone additions in India, the world’s second-largest mobile phone market after China, have slowed in the past year as the market shows some signs of saturation The telecoms regulator will later release detailed figures for all companies and the sector. As of February, India had a total 911 million mobile subscribers.