According to the latest statistics released by Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), the GSM industry has added 5.75 million subscribers last month.

With this, the total GSM mobile phone user base has now reached 159.7 million and the country has become the world's fastest growing wireless market.

As per the figures given by COAI, Bharti Airtel has retained the top position with a market share of 31.88% making a total of 50.09 million subscribers.

However, the number of new subscribers has declined to 2.03 million in October, as compared to 2.06 million in September.

At the second position stands Vodafone-Essar, with a market share of 23.28% and 37.1 million subscribers. The company added 1.52 million new subscribers in October.

The state-owned firms Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd. (MTNL) added 727,855 and 53,739 new subscribers. BSNL now has a market share of 19.43% and a total of around 31 million subscribers.

Meanwhile, Birla Group's Regional added 750,108 new subscribers, raising the total subscriber base to 19.4 million. Aircel's user base went up to 8.52 million, while Spice now has 3.57 million subscribers.