India 's booming wireless sector, the world's fastest growing major mobile market, added 2.49 million new users in July 2005, taking the total number of customers to 60.366 million.

The Cellular Operators' Association, representing nine carriers offering mobile services based on the widely prevalent Global System for Mobile (GSM) communication, said that 1.954 million customers signed up for its services. Overall, GSM carriers had 46.874 million customers at the end of July, up 4.35% over June.

The strong growth in the past month came despite heavy monsoon rains that wreaked havoc in Bombay . Local mobile call tariffs of as low as 2 US cents a minute is driving cellular usage in India .

India 's top mobile services firm, Bharti Tele-Ventures, added over 5 lakh GSM wireless users, taking its customer base to 12.789 million subscribers. State run Bharat Sanchar Nigam, the second-ranked GSM player, had a mobile user base of 10.724 million customers. Bharat Sanchar along with Hutchison Essar Telecom added over 4 lakh subscribers in July.

GSM companies compete with carriers such as Reliance Infocomm who offer similar services based on Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) technology.