India's overall telephony subscriber base grew to 653.9 million by the end of May, up from 638.1 million just the month before, according to telecom regulator Trai.
This represents a growth rate of 2.5%, and an overall teledensity of 55.38, Trai said in a statement.
The mobile subscriber base hit 617.5 million, from 601.2 million the month before. Bharti Airtel added the most new customers - around 3 million, followed by Reliance Communications at 2.8 million and Vodafone Essar at 2.6 million.
But the dwarfed by comparison wireline subscriber base continued to shrink during the month, slumping to 36.4 million in May from 36.4 million the month before.
State-owned operators BSNL and MTNL continued to dominate the market, with BSNL holding 74.7% of market share, and MTNL 9.6%.
Fixed broadband customers grew by a modest 2.7% to 9.24 million.
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