According to the latest figures released, the total number of GSM subscribers has risen marginally to 657.56 million in January, 2013.

The data released by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) , there were a total of 657.16 million subscribers in the country in December 2012. The mobile phone subscribers were able to add just about 0.4 million new customers in January over the previous month. Even as the increase in the total number subscriber is small, it is significant because a growth is recorded after two months of fall in the total number of users.

According to the figures, Aircel, Videocon and Uninor, which were not able to bag licences in the auctions, together lost 4.56 million GSM subscribers in January this year. Market leader Airtel, Idea Cellular and Vodafone all recorded an increase in their GSM subscriber base. 2.45 million new customers joined Idea, 2.29 million new subscribers got connected to Airtel and 0.22 million subscribers moved to Vodafone during the month. COAI data showed that Airtel had about a quarter of all GSM subscribers in the country

Experts say that the total figure of 657.56 million recorded in January is still lower than 676.3 million subscribers that was touched in August, 2012.