Singapore Telecommunications Ltd., Southeast Asia's largest telephone company, added 12.37 million mobile-phone subscribers during its first quarter, boosted by rural customers in India.

SingTel, as the company is known, had a total of 197.7 million users in eight markets at the end of June, the wireless phone carrier said in a statement to the Singapore stock exchange today.

Indian market leader Bharti Airtel Ltd., in which SingTel owns 31 percent, gained 7.4 million wireless customers during the quarter, almost 50 percent more than second-ranked Reliance Communications Ltd.'s 5 million.

Indonesia's PT Telekomunikasi Selular, or Telkomsel, signed up 1.1 million users in the three months, while Sydney-based SingTel Optus Pty added 101,000 subscribers. SingTel owns all of Optus and 35 percent in Telkomsel, Indonesia's biggest wireless carrier.

In Singapore, SingTel attracted 182,000 customers, boosting its users in its home market to 2.75 million.

SingTel is scheduled to report fiscal first-quarter earnings before the Singapore market opens tomorrow.

Source:Bloomberg