The Cellular Operators Association of India (which includes most of India’s GSM telecom operators), has reported an increase of 5.33 million GSM connections in August 2011 as compared to 7.64 million in the previous month. While the connection growth was 0.88%, the net additions reported declined by as much as 30.2% month on month. However, until the TRAI's report on subscriber additions is out, we don't think you should read too much into this data yet. Here's why: 1. The COAI data doesn't represent the entire GSM Mobile industry in India: it does not include Tata Docomo and Reliance Communications' GSM base. Given that many COAI members (Airtel, Idea) announced a call rate hike, sign-ups could have switched to Tata Docomo and RCOM. Wait for the TRAI report for a more comprehensive picture of the GSM base. 2. The older data wasn't representative of a true market conditions: The last year or so had seen net additions in the range of 12-20 million connections a month, but that included multi-SIM usage, and connections were (and still are) being reported as 'subscribers'. So, just that people aren't buying extra SIMs should not be a cause for concern. A decline in minutes of use or revenue for the industry would be more worrying. 3. Rationalization & Standardization In Reporting? It could also be that more subscribers have been churned out, with some operators now not reporting dormant SIMs over a longer period of time. As we've seen from the TRAI's VLR/Active user data, many…
