Indian operators collectively added 17 million new subscribers in the month of July 2010 taking the total number of mobile subscribers in the country from 635.51 million to 652.42 million at a monthly growth rate of 2.66%.

Bharti Airtel added the maximum number of new subscribers with 2.6 million followed by Reliance Communications with 2.5 million. Bharti Airtel now has 139.2 million subscribers while Reliance has 113.3 million. Vodafone added 2.4 million new subscribers with subscriber base of 111.4 million, Idea added 1.8 million, Aircel 1.6 million, TTSL 2.3 million, BSNL 1.08 million and MTNL 44,909.

The country’s total telecom subscriber base reached 688.38 million as compared to 671.69 million in June 2010. The overall tele-density increased to 58.17%.

The wireline subscriber base however declined from 36.18 million in June to 35.96 million by July-end.