India reports 6.2 million mobile subscribers surge

Sufia Tippu
Wednesday, 11 October 2006 19:09

IT Industry - Market

It has been a bumper addition of mobile subscribers in India this month. India has added 6.2 million mobile phone subscribers in September, making it one of the world's fastest growing markets for cellular phones, according to the latest industry data.

In the past few months mobile growth was in the range of 4-5 million new subscribers a month.

Out of the 6.2 million additions in September, 4.4 million were GSM subscribers and 1.8 million were using CDMA-based mobile technology.

Today, with India’s total mobile phone base of 127 million connections, 91 million are GSM and 38 million CDMA-based.

Says Deepak Mehrotra, CEO, Bharti Airtel, Karnataka: “There are three key drivers for this surge in subscriber base. One is cellular operators are expanding their coverage and entering smaller cities and covering newer geographies.

“Two, the tariffs are becoming lower and newer products like life-time validity for pre-paid subscribers are also increasing.

“And, three, prices of handsets has also drastically come down and today you can buy a handset for about $40-45.”

Add a huge dose of intense competition and the ease of getting a connection and it is no wonder that the country gets over a million new subscribers a month.

“Mobile operators are delighted at the continued upswing in the subscriber additions," added T.V. Ramachandran, the chief executive at the Cellular Operators Association of India.