India`s sixth-ranked mobile operator, added 3.87 million subscribers in October, maintaining its lead for a third straight month, data from an industry body showed.

Tata Tele, 26% owned by Japan`s NTT DoCoMo, was the first operator to launch a per-second billing plan, deviating from the industry norm of per-minute billing, which saw a strong response and forced bigger rivals to match it.

India is the world`s fastest-growing cellular market, with monthly signs up averaging about 14 million this year.

Tata Tele, which operates both on GSM and CDMA platforms, saw its mobile subscribers rising to 50.7 million in October from 46.8 million in September, data released by the Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India (AUSPI) showed.

Market leader Bharti Airtel added 2.7 million mobile users in October, taking its total to 113.2 million, and third-ranked Vodafone Essar gained 2.98 million users to 85.8 million.

The consolidated figures for October would be released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India later in November.