Indian Mobile Subscribers Cross 63 Million; August Addition 2.73 Million

Reuters India: India’s mobile telephony market is booming as ever. The world’s fastest growing major mobile market added 2.73 million new users in August, taking the total number of customers to 63.09 million.
The Cellular Operators’ Association of India, representing nine carriers offering mobile services based on the widely prevalent Global System for Mobile (GSM) communication, said 2.039 million customers signed up for its services in August. Overall, GSM carriers had 48.91 million customers at the end of August, up 4.35 percent over July.
“We are very hopeful that new additions each month will make a new record,” T.V. Ramachandran, director general of the Cellular Operators’ Association, said. “Networks are being rolled out aggressively in unserved areas.”
Even a decade after their launch, wireless facilities cover only a quarter of the country. Local mobile call tariffs of as low as 2 U.S. cents a minute are driving cellular usage in India, where six people in 100 in the more than a billion-strong population use mobile services.
India’s top mobile services firm, Bharti Tele-Ventures Ltd., added 624,209 GSM wireless users, its highest ever, taking its customer base to 13.41 million subscribers. State-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam, the second-ranked GSM player, had a mobile user base of 11.319 million customers. It added 595,130 subscribers in the past month. Hutchison Essar Telecom Ltd., the Indian wireless operation of Hong Kong’s Hutchison Telecommunications International Ltd., added 451,236 mobile users last month. The firm’s user base stood at 9.296 million customers.
GSM companies compete with carriers such as Reliance Infocomm Ltd. who offer similar services based on code division multiple access technology. The association representing CDMA operators said these firms signed up 693,876 new users in August, taking their combined user base to 13.035 million customers. Bombay-based Reliance Infocomm accounted for the bulk of the new CDMA additions. The firm attracted 487,911 customers and raised its mobile user base to 11.134 million.

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