India is likely to cross the 200 million mark in mobile phones by the end of this month, four months ahead of schedule.
Mobile phone subscriber base to hit year-end target this month itself
NEW DELHI: India is likely to cross the 200 million mark in mobile phones by the end of this month, four months ahead of schedule.
The government had set a target of 200 million mobile phones and 250 million phones (both fixed and mobile) by the end of 2007.
The country hit the 100 million mark in mobile phones as recently as May 2006. While it took over 10 years to reach the magic figure of 100 million (as wireless telephony was introduced in 1995), it took just over a year to reach the next 100 million.
In July, the mobile subscriber base in the country rose by 8.06 million, taking the total wireless users to 192.98 million. Even if the subscriber base increases by 7 million in August, India will have 200 million wireless subscribers by the end of this month.
India is third after China and the US, in terms of wireless subscribers. Meanwhile, the CDMA (code division multiple access) Development Group (CDG) has announced that India's CDMA subscriber base has crossed 50 million.
The remaining 150 million mobile subscribers are from the global system for mobile communications (GSM) group.
Among metros, Chennai topped the growth in fixed-line subscribers, constituting 19.9% of its total telephone base, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).
Kolkata, Mumbai and Delhi followed with 19.5%, 18.7% and 14.8%, respectively.
Against less than 20% fixed-line users, out of the total phone subscribers in each of the metros, wireless users in Delhi are as high as 85.1% of the total (fixed and mobile). The respective figures for Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai are 81.2%, 80.4% and 80%, respectively.
Of the 15.6 million phone users in Delhi, 13.28 million are wireless subscribers, and the remaining 2.32 million fixed-phone users.
In Mumbai, the total phone subscriber base is at 13.39 million. Of this, 10.88 million are wireless users and the remaining 2.51 million fixed-phone users. In Kolkata, the total phone users are 7.22 million, of which 5.81 million are mobile subscribers and the remaining 1.41 million fixed-line users.
In Chennai, the total number of phone users is at 6.66 million. Of this, 5.33 million are wireless subscribers and the remaining 1.33 million fixed-phone users.
As on July-end, the total number of telephone subscribers in the country has touched 232.87 million, after adding 7.86 million during the month. While 8.06 million users were added in July in the wireless segment, the wireline category saw a drop by 0.20 million.
The overall teledensity in the country has increased to 20.52 in July, against 19.86 in July. The total wireless base stood at 192.98 million at the end of July, against 39.89 million fixed-line subscribers in the country.
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