India Becomes World's 2nd Largest Wireless Market

[@ksh@T 20]

NEW DELHI: India has surpassed the US to to have the world's second largest wireless network in the world after China with the addition of 10.16 million wireless subscribers at the end of March.

The total number of wireless subscribers stood at 261.09 million at the end of March, telecom regulator Trai said in a statement.

According to International Association of Wireless Telecommunications Industry, the current wireless users in the US is estimated to be around 257.89 million.

"India has become second largest wireless network in the world after China by overtaking the US," TRAI said.

In March, the operators had added 10.16 million wireless subscribers compared to 8.53 million added in the month of February.

Of the total 10.16 million, Bharti Airtel, country's largest mobile operator, added 2.31 million new customers in March and Reliance Communications added 1.615 million.

Total 10.4 million telephone connections (Wireline and Wireless) have been added during March, compared to 8.49 million connections added in February.

With this addition, the total number of telephone connections in the country reaches 300.51 million at the end of March, compared to 290.11 million in last month.

The overall tele-density is 26.22 per cent at the end of March, against 25.31 per cent in February 2008. In the wireline segment, the subscriber base has moved up to 39.42 million in March, against 39.18 million subscribers in February.

Total broadband subscribers base has reached 3.90 million, compared to 3.47 million in the previous month.

[city02 63]

I can't help finding it amusing when the news media goes gaga over India becoming #2 in the world.

we seem to love celebrating mediocrity as a nation given that with the 2nd largest population in the world, its understood that we should become the 2nd largest market in most industries.

i guess the next big step would be aiming for 2nd largest by telecom revenue which will take much longer...

until then maybe we could wait to become the 2nd largest handset mkt followed by #2 for internet users etc.