Abstract
This paper deals with a new two-parameter lifetime distribution with increasing failure rate. This distribution is constructed as a distribution of a random sum of independent exponential random variables when the sample size has a zero truncated binomial distribution. Various statistical properties of the distribution are derived. We estimate the parameters by maximum likelihood and obtain the Fisher information matrix. Simulation studies show the performance of the estimators. Also, estimation of the parameters is considered in the presence of censoring. A real data set is analyzed for illustrative purposes and it is noted that the distribution is a good competitor to the gamma, Weibull, exponentiated exponential, weighted exponential and Poisson-exponential distributions for this data set.