India, the fastest growing country in wireless telephony, now has over 200 million mobile subscribers, going by industry estimates.
NEW DELHI: India, the fastest growing country in wireless telephony, now has over 200 million mobile subscribers, going by industry estimates.
While the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) said in a statement on Thursday that the GSM (global systems for mobile communications) base has increased by almost 6 million in August to touch a figure of 147.7 million.
Although the Association of Unified Service Providers of India (AUSPI) is yet to release the official figures, sources pointed out that the CDMA (code division multiple access) base is expected to have increased by 2 million during August.
If the combined increase in mobile subscriber numbers (GSM and CDMA) is around 8 million in August, the total wireless base would have crossed the 200-million figure.
As of end of July, the mobile subscriber base was 192.98 million.
While GSM operators include Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd , Idea Cellular, Aircel, Reliance Telecom, Spice, BPL and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL), the CDMA majors are Reliance Communications and Tata Teleservices.
The latest Cellular Operators Association of India figures indicate that Bharti is the GSM leader with a 31.7% market share, followed by Vodafone with 23.10, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd with 20.11%, Idea with 12.10%, Aircel with 5.16%, Reliance Telecom with 2.94%, Spice with 2.30%, MTNL with 1.85% and BPL with 0.75%.
Interestingly, India is reaching the target of 200 million mobile subscribers, four months ahead of schedule. The target of 200 million mobile phones, and a total of 250 million phones (fixed and mobile together), was set by the government for the end of 2007. The country is yet to reach the total target of 250 million phone subscribers, as fixed phone numbers have been declining in the recent past.
India had hit the100-million mobile phone mark as recently as May 2006. While the country took over 10 years to reach the magic figure of 100 million mobile subscribers (as wireless telephony was introduced in India in 1995), it has taken just a little over one year to get the next 100 million.
In July, the mobile subscriber base in the country rose up by 8.06 million, taking the total wireless user number to 192.98 million.
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