Updated : Wireless Subscribers In India

[Honest 836]

About 8.94 mn wireless users added in June :TRAI

25 Jul, 2008, 1720 hrs IST, ET

NEW DELHI: As many as 8.94 million wireless subscribers were added by mobile operators in June this year as against 8.62 million in May, taking the total user base to 286.86 million in the country.

According to data released by telecom regulator TRAI, about 8.81 million telephone connections, including wireline and wireless, have been added during the month as compared to 8.46 million connections added in May 2008.

The total wireless subscribers -- GSM, CDMA and WLL(F)-- base stood at 286.86 million in June, it added.

India is the second largest wireless market globally after China.

The total number of telephone connections reached 325.78 million in June from 316.97 million in May 2008, TRAI said.

The overall tele-density was 28.33 per cent in June 2008 as against 27.59 per cent in May.

In the wireline segment, the subscriber base has slightly decreased to 38.92 million in the month of June 2008 as against 39.05 million subscribers in May 2008.

The broadband subscribers reached 4.38 million mark. India's mobile user base rose 25 times in the last five years and research firm Gartner expects it to touch 737 million by 2012.

Call rates of as low as US 1 cent a minute and network expansion by operators have pushed the pace of growth in India's mobile subscriber base, which is increasing by more than eight million a month, TRAI added.

The bulk of the new mobile users are seen coming from the rural areas where only 10 per cent of the population has a phone, compared with a national average of about 25 per cent.

[Honest 836]

India adds 6.42 mn GSM mobile users in July

13 Aug, 2008, 2033 hrs IST, ET

NEW DELHI: India added 6.42 million mobile users in July in its GSM-based telecom networks, an industry body said on Wednesday, accelerating the pace of user growth from the previous month. Handsets costing as low as $15 and call rates as low as 1 US cent a minute have helped India to become the world's fastest-growing market for wireless services and the second-largest market for such services after China.

In June, 6.32 million users had signed up. India had 218.9 million GSM users at the end of July, data from the Cellular Operators' Association of India showed. The data includes Reliance Communications' GSM network as of June.

Reliance Communications, the No 2 telecoms firm, a majority of whose subscribers are its CDMA network, announces subscriber numbers separately. It had added a total of 1.74 million mobile users in June to 50.8 million.

Top operator Bharti Airtel added 2.69 million users in July, taking its total to 72.1 million, the data showed. Vodafone Plc controlled Vodafone Essar, the third largest firm, had 50.95 million users at the end of July, having added 1.76 million users in the month. No. 4 mobile firm Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd, which is gearing up for a $10 billion public offer, added 553,219 GSM mobile users in the month to end with 37.92 million.

It also had 30.9 million fixed-line users as of June. No 5 Idea Cellular, which is buying smaller Spice Communications, got 1.05 million new users in July, taking its total subscribers to 28.2 million. Spice had 4.2 million mobile users as of July.

[KumaarShah 143]

^^^

Any news of RCOMs figures for July? Are they still retaining the No.2 spot or have they vacated it to Vodafone? At 50.95 mn as of July 08, Vodafone appears marginally higher than RCOM's 50.8 mn as of June 08. Hope the stats are correct.

[Honest 836]

Bharti Airtel crosses 75 mn subscriber base

17 Aug, 2008, 1555 hrs IST, PTI

NEW DELHI: India's largest private telecom company Bharti Airtel on Sunday said it has crossed the 75 million customer mark to become the fourth largest in-country mobile operator in the world.

Bharti Airtel is now behind China Mobile, China Unicom and American AT&T in terms of subscriber base, a company statement said.

The subscriber figure includes customers from all business units of the company, mobile services, telemedia services and enterprises services, the statement said. The mobile services devision has a customer base of 72.07 million as of July, 2008, it added.

The mobile business provides mobile and fixed wireless services using GSM technology across 23 telecom circles.

Commenting on the landmark Bharti Airtel CEO and Joint Managing Director Manoj Kohli said, "We are happy to have achieved this milestone of being the largest integrated telco in the country, in customer terms. For us, the benchmark of real leadership is customer delight and would like to thank all our customers for placing their faith in us."

The company had crossed the 60 million customer mark in February 2008 and the 50 million mark in October 2007, thereby becoming one of the fastest growing telecom companies in the world, the statement added.

China Mobile with 414.5 million customers as on June 2008 is at the No 1 position followed by China Unicom with 170.7 million subscriber base. AT&T is marginally ahead of Bharti with a subscriber base of 72.9 million in June this year.

[Himanshu Singh 19]

One thing I am not prepared to believe is the number of subscribers which the companies keep boasting of every month. I am sure they dont even know how many people dump them every month. It serves no purpose other than cornering spectrum( may be).

[Honest 836]

July sees highest ever mobile user addition at 9.22 mn

25 Aug, 2008, 1700 hrs IST, PTI

NEW DELHI: India, the world's fastest- growing mobile services market, added a record 9.22 million wireless subscribers in July as against 8.94 million in June.

The total user base now stands at 296.08 million in the country, said Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.

However, wireline or fixed line connections fell by 0.16 million, pulling down the overall increase in telephone connections to 9.06 million in the month under review, according to data released by telecom regulator TRAI.

The prospect of 10-million mobile user addition is a good possibility, said a private player. The overall tele-density was 29.08 per cent in July 2008 as against 28.33 per cent in June.

Though there has been an increase in the addition of wireless subscribers, fixed-line users continued to dwindle with the subscribers base declining to 38.76 million in July from 38.92 in June, 2008.

The total number of telephone connections reached 334.84 million at the end of July 2008, as compared with 325.78 million in June 2008, the statement added.

The total wireless subscribers {GSM, CDMA and WLL(F)}, base stood at 296.08 million in July as against 286.86 in June, it noted.

The broadband subscribers reached 4.57 million mark in July as compared with 4.38 million in June.

Top mobile operator Bharti Airtel added about 2.67 million new customers. The company had 72.07 million mobile users at the end of July.

Reliance Communications added about 1.74 million wireless users to have 52.53 million subscribers and Vodafone Essar added 1.75 million mobile customers in July, taking its total to 50.95 million.

[Honest 836]

100 million mobile subscribers added in a year

7 Sep, 2008, 1617 hrs IST, PTI

NEW DELHI: India's wireless subscriber base has witnessed a blistering growth of 54 per cent over the past one year by adding over 100 million new users into the mobile club.

As per data available with Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), country's mobile users touched 296.08 million in July-end this year against 192.98 million last year in the same month, a year-on-year growth of 53.44 per cent.

In July this year, the telecom industry witnessed the highest-ever addition of 9.22 million wireless subscribers taking the total teledensity of the country to 29.08 per cent. India has been adding more than eight million subscribers consistently for more than six months now, and this trend may continue as 700 million more remain to be tapped.

Being a low-tariff mobile market, cheap calls have broken the class barrier to accommodate all kinds of subscribers. Call rates today are as low as few paise per minute. Analysts said growth of India's mobile market remains robust as competition among mobile operators continues to intensify. With the mobile penetration level having just exceeded 25 per cent, considerable growth potential still remains, particularly in the massive rural markets.

All the mobile operators have started expanding into the rural markets. Their network-infrastructure-sharing initiatives will help speed up network roll-out in the rural and remote areas. The anticipated 3G roll licensing will give another boost to the competition level and help stimulate industry growth. However, wireline or fixed line connections fell by 0.16 million in July 2008, as per the data released by the telecom regulator.

[Honest 836]

GSM cos add 6.3 million users in Aug

11 Sep, 2008, 2045 hrs IST, PTI

NEW DELHI: GSM-based companies led by Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Essar added 6.3 million subscribers in August, compared to 6.7 million they added in July.

This has taken the total GSM user base to 225 million. The figures does not include Reliance Telecom's GSM user numbers.

Market leader Bharti Airtel added 2.7 million users in the month taking its total subscriber base to 74 million with a marketshare of 33.15 per cent, according to a statement released by Cellular Operators Association.

Bharti Airtel is followed by Vodafone Essar which added 1.8 million users in the month taking user base to 52 million. State-run BSNL added 0.57 million users to take its total user base to 38 million with a marketshare of 17.06 per cent.

Idea Cellular added 1 million users to increase its total user base to 29 million, the statement said.

[Honest 836]

Reliance Comm adds 1.75 mn users in Aug

15 Sep, 2008, 1641 hrs IST, ET

NEW DELHI: Reliance Communications, India's No 2 mobile operator, added 1.75 million new wireless users in August, taking its total user base to more than 54 million, the company said in a statement on Monday.

The company had 52.54 million wireless users as of end-July, according to data from India's telecoms regulator.

[@ksh@T 20]

Mobile growth story on; 9.16 mn added in Aug

24 Sep, 2008, 1629 hrs IST, PTI

NEW DELHI: India's telecom growth pattern continues with mobile operators adding 9.16 million subscribers in August to the world's second largest wireless market.

The total wireless subscriber base, which includes GSM, CDMA and WLL(F), stood at 305.24 million at the end of August 2008. A total of 9.16 million wireless subscribers have been added during August 2008, against 9.22 million wireless subscribers added during July 2008, TRAI said on Wednesday.

Since wireline segment witnessed a decline, the total number of telephone connection added was 9.03 million (both fixed line and wireless) during August 2008, compared with 9.06 million connections added in July 2008.

The total number of telephone connections reaches 343.87 million at the end of August 2008, compared with 334.84 million in July 2008. With this growth, the overall tele-density has reached 29.83 per cent at the end of August 2008, against 29.08 per cent in July 2008.

Innovative and cheap tariffs in paise, lower handset costs and suave marketing skills by mobile companies like Airtel, Vodafone Essar and Idea have lured millions of Indians to own a mobile phone.

With this the tele-density (number of people having a telephone connection per 100 ) reached 29.83 per cent mark.

In the wireline segment, the subscriber base has slightly decreased to 38.63 million in August 2008, against 38.76 million subscribers in July 2008.

Total Broadband subscribers base has reached 4.73 million by the end of August 2008 as compared to 4.57 million by the end of July 2008.

[Honest 836]

Over 4 billion cell subscribers by end of 2008: UN

25 Sep, 2008, 1657 hrs IST, AGENCIES

GENEVA: The number of cell phone subscribers will reach 4 billion by the end of the year, largely because of growth in emerging markets, the UN telecommunications agency said on Thursday.

The International Telecommunications Union said growing use of mobile phones in Brazil, Russia, India and China have driven global coverage to over 60 per cent.

[@ksh@T 20]

India adds 7.32 mn GSM mobile users in Sept

11 Oct, 2008, 1550 hrs IST, REUTERS

MUMBAI: India added 7.32 million mobile users in September in its GSM-based telecom networks, its highest ever, an industry body said on Saturday.

The total subscriber base at the end of September stood at 233.3 million, as against 225.98 million in August, data from the Cellular Operators' Association of India (COAI) showed.

The latest data denoted a 3.24 percent rise on month. The numbers do not include September additions by No 2 operator Reliance Communications Reliance, which predominantly uses CDMA technology but has some GSM customers, had 54.3 million total wireless users at end-August.

The company releases its monthly additions separately. "It is estimated that the month's GSM additions would be about 7.7 million when all figures come in," T. V. Ramachandran, director general of COAI said, referring to the GSM additions by Reliance.

Top operator Bharti Airtel added 2.70 million new users in September taking its total base to 77.5 million in, the statement said.

Vodafone Plc- controlled Vodafone Essar, added 1.87 million users to take its base to 54.6 million users.

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd, which is gearing up for a $10 billion public offer, added 676,965 new users to have a base of 39.2 million users at end-September.

India is the world's fastest growing market for mobile phone services and the second largest market for such services after China.

Other than the GSM-based telecom users, it also has a Substantial user-base in the CDMA-based network.

[Honest 836]

Fixed line user base down 12 lakh/year

Economic Times l 14 Oct l New Delhi

NEW DELHI: Despite countless efforts and new offers by state-owned BSNL to ramp up wireline penetration in India, fixedlines in India have hit a new low.

According to latest figures from telecom regulator TRAI, the fixedline segment has fallen by about five lakh users during the last three months. This comes even as private telecom operators such as Airtel, Tata Teleservices and Reliance Communications have been recording positive growth and jointly adding tens of thousands of fixedline subscribers.

Over the last 12 months, the fixedline subscribers have declined by close to 12 lakh.

As per TRAI’s latest performance indicator data, the country’s fixedline base has fallen to 39.92 million for the quarter-ended June 2008 against 40.09 million for the corresponding period last year. In fact, it is not just the urban population that is giving up on landlines.

Rural India too prefers mobile phones over landlines. TRAI data shows that rural fixedline numbers fell by over 3 lakh for the quarter-ended June 2008. Put simply, the rural wireline subscriber base declined 2.7% to touch 11.33 million in the quarter ended June when compared to from 11.64 million in the previous quarter (March) of the same year. On the other hand, mobile phones in rural India grew 13.72% to reach 70.83 million in the quarter-ending June.

State-owned telcos BSNL and MTNL have been primarily responsible for the fall in landlines. For instance, BSNL lost close to 7 lakh landline customers during the June quarter while MTNL’s fixedline base fell by about 50,000 during the same period.

On the other hand, private telcos, who currently command about 15% of the fixedline space, showed improved performance-Bharti added over one lakh landline customers, while the Tatas and Reliance Communications increased their bases by 50,000 and 78,000, respectively.

While landlines may be down, the number of Village Public Telephones (VPT) and Public Call Offices have shown a marginal increase. Besides, the fixedlines users who use this facility to connect to the Net also increased by 5.09% to reach 11.66 million during this period compared to 11.09 million in the quarter-ended March, 2008.

The fall in wireline numbers comes even as the government has come up with several initiatives to help BSNL on this front. The DoT will provide BSNL with over Rs 2,000 crore annually from the Universal Service Obligation fund to sustain its fixedline operations in rural India.

The DoT had decided to extend this support as TRAI did away with the access deficit levy (ADC) from September 1, 2008. So far, all telcos paid a certain per cent of their annual revenues towards ADC. Besides, all incoming overseas calls were also subject to this levy.

The DoT had also done away with licence fee for telcos providing landlines services in rural India, a move that was aimed at benefiting only BSNL. The PSU on its part had reduced rentals on the Gramin Telecom plan from Rs 110 to Rs 75 and for the Sulabh plan, the rentals were slashed to Rs 99 from Rs 120 to encourage fixedline adoption in rural areas.

[Honest 836]

Mobile Phone Revolution in Rural India

Witnesses a phenomenal growth

Everyone has a mobile phone, at least in the cities, nowadays. Gone are the days when spotting a rickshaw-wallah chatting away on his mobile phone surprised us.

TRAI's (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) latest report shows that rural India is soon catching up on this "mobile connectivity for all" phenomenon and have figures to prove this. According to TRAI, "Of the 25 million customers added in the April-June quarter, 8 million are from rural areas." In fact, rural India now accounts for as much as 30-percent of new mobile phone users in India.

With over 70-percent of the Indian population living in the hinterlands, it is not only the state-owned telecom operator BSNL reaching out to them; but private operators are now very much involved in this untapped lucrative sector. Slack in the growth rate in the metros has instigated private players to dig this goldmine.

Some facts:

- 70 million mobile users in villages (out of a total 300 million) compared with 40 million in September 2007 (out of 209 million)

- Nearly 75 per cent of mobile users in villages are now owned by private operators

- Mobile handsets costing less than $50 account for 62 per cent of all imported units (according to Yankee group)

However, with this surge, there has been a decline in the average revenue per user (ARPU). GSM operators ARPU per month has declined 9.3 per cent from Rs. 264 in March 2008 to Rs. 239 in June. For the CDMA segment, ARPU was at Rs. 139 in June compared to Rs. 159 in March.

Courtesy : Techtree

[Honest 836]

Indian GSM operators notch up 8 mn subscriber additions in October

The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) today released the monthly subscriber additions statistics for GSM operators whereby it emerged that the service providers were able to register 8 million new subscribers in the month of October which is highest across the globe.

While current figures total up to 7.7 million additions, figures of Reliance Telecom are yet to be considered and the subsequent figures when combined is estimated to go past 8 million.

COAI Director General, T V Ramachandran said that with the current growth trends, it is widely believed that the GSM sector alone would cross the 250 million target set by the government for mobile services subscriber base by end of 2008.

In terms of growth, BPL Mobile continued its robust growth in the highly competitive Mumbai circle at 8.65%. The company against all odds has been registering healthy growth in the circle for the past few months and is on the verge of bouncing back to regain its lost hold in the circle.

At the end of the month, Bharti continues to maintain its leadership position with a subscriber base of 80.19 million and market share of 33.23% to be followed by Vodafone at 56.7 million subscribers and market share of 23.49%. BSNL continued its snail journey with subscriber base still hovering under the 40 million mark (39.83 million to be precise).

Courtesy : TelecomTiger

[Honest 836]

Telcos add record 10.42 mn subscribers in Oct

Press Trust of India l 24 Nov l New Delhi

Telecom operators in India added record 10.42 million mobile phone subscribers in October, taking the number of cellphone users to over 325 million, according to the data released by sectoral regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).

A total of 10.42 million wireless (GSM, CDMA and WLL) subscribers have been added during October 2008 against 10.07 million wireless subscribers added in September 2008, Trai said.

The total wireless subscribers stood at 325.73 million at the end of October 2008.

Continuing the trend of adding telephone subscribers at a blistering pace, the country saw a net addition of about 10.29 million users (wireline and wireless) in October against 9.79 million in September.

The total number of both wireless and wireline users now stands at 363.95 million, Trai said.

However, in the wireline segment, the subscriber base fell to 38.22 million in October from 38.35 million in September.

The overall tele-density stood at 31.50 per cent at the end of October against 30.64 per cent in September this year.

The total broadband subscriber base rose to 5.05 million by the end of October 2008 from 4.90 million in September this year.

[Honest 836]

Bharti Airtel beats all CDMA cos put together

Economic Times l 27 Nov 2008 l New Delhi

NEW DELHI: Bharti Airtel, the country’s largest mobile operator by subscribers, has outperformed all CDMA players put together in terms of mobile revenues, net subscriber addition and revenue share in the last four months. In October, the company increased its lead over the combined CDMA wireless user base to 1.24 million.

At the beginning of calendar year 2008, Bharti had 55.16 million mobile subscribers. CDMA players Reliance Communications, Tata Teleservices, HFCL and Shyam Telecom together had 57.05 million users.

Bharti surpassed the total CDMA wireless subscriber base in July this year when it increased its user base to about 72 million, compared to the 71.8 million CDMA subscribers in the country. In October, it added 2.7 million mobile users to take its base to nearly 80.2 million users. CDMA operators added 2.29 million users and their total wireless base now stands at nearly 79 million.

The net wireless subscriber addition in the year to date has been 25.04 million for Bharti Airtel and 21.89 million for the CDMA players. While CDMA is considered a better technology in terms of its spectrum utilisation, it’s GSM which has found favour with users not just in India but globally as well.

“There is a global inclination towards GSM and three-fourths of global subscribers use this technology. The sheer volumes in case of GSM will have a big effect on R&D and equipment costs, bringing them down,” Gartner principal research analyst Anshul Gupta said.

[KumaarShah 143]

^^^

I too agree with the view that there is a global inclination towards GSM. CDMA will die out maybe in 5 to 10 years max.

[Honest 836]

CDMA will die out maybe in 5 to 10 years max.

^^^

Yes my dear Kumaar, I think CDMA will completely shut-off even before 5 years in India.

[Honest 836]

Mobile base to touch 500 m by 2010

Business Line l 4 Dec l Kochi

With the introduction of the 3G spectrum, mobile connections in India are poised to touch 500 million by 2010. Addressing the Industry Summit on ‘3G: The Next Wave’ at Kochi, Mr Siddhartha Behura, Secretary in the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, said the 3G bid document has been finalised. Broad guidelines have already been issued and allotment of spectrum has been planned through simultaneous ascending e-auction process. There would also be a pre-bid conference between the industry and the Government.

The auction is planned to be held in January 2009 by the independent auctioneer, N.M. Rothschild, and the process of allotment of spectrum will be completed before February 2009, Mr Behura said. “Bulk of the growth in telephone connections comes from the mobile platform. But the objective is not just the numbers; telecom must be used as the tool to empower the citizens and bridge the digital divide,” he said. The industry summit was organised by Ericsson and Assocham.

2nd largest market

India has become the second largest wireless market as well as the fastest growing market in the world. The total number of mobile telephone connections in the country has reached over 320 million by the end of October 2008. Today it adds 10 million new mobile subscribers every month.

The next focus area of the government would be in providing affordable broadband, especially to sub-urban and rural communities.

“This is not only expected to give a new burst of growth for the community, but on a larger plane would provide multiplier effects to the entire rural community. As the telecom connectivity and broadband connectivity becomes a reality, the rural communities are expected to become more integrated with the rapid growth processes taking place in the rest of the economy,” Mr Behura added.

‘Need to extend services’

There was a need to provide not only plain vanilla voice services to rural subscribers, but a greater urgency to extend services like e-medicine, e-education and e-governance. These are facilities which the urban subscribers take for granted but are quite critical to the rural population and can be provided through broadband kind of services.

Mr Sanjeev Aga, Managing Director of Idea Cellular Limited, said majority of the new mobile users are from the rural countryside. Majority of the new mobile users, that is more than 50 per cent are from rural India.

[Honest 836]

PM expects telecom user base to touch 700 mn by 2012

Press Trust of India l 11 Dec l New Delhi

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expects the telecom subscriber base in the country to touch 700 million by 2012, going by the massive number of monthly addition of new users.

"In October 2008, Indian mobile telephone operators signed up a record number of over 10 million users. At this rate of growth, the total telecom subscriber base is expected to reach 700 million by 2012 with about 650 million mobile users and 50 million landlines," Singh said while inaugurating 'India Telecom 2008' fest.

The Department of Telecom has fixed a target of 500 million telephone connections by 2010 and 750 million by 2012. Currently, the country's telecom user base is at 373 million, including November figures.

Indian telecom sector has a unique distinction of being the fastest growing telecom sector in the world, with addition of over eight million subscribers per month, and the second largest wireless network in the world after China, surpassing the US.

According to analysts, the only glitch in the growth pattern is that the telecom growth in rural areas has not kept pace with that in urban areas. That being the reason, the government has a long way to go in bridging the rural-urban divide and further improving the connectivity in rural areas.

But the situation is improving there too. The Prime Minister said, "Many of the new subscribers are now coming from rural areas. More than three million rural subscribers are being added every month. India has one of the cheapest cell phone rates in the world. This helps our rural countrymen, farmers and fishermen in using mobile phone services. However, rural tele-density stays low at 13 per cent compared to the national average of 32 per cent and the urban tele-density of 74 per cent."

Speaking on the occasion, Telecom Minister A Raja said the sector had made remarkable growth in the recent past.

"In the last 18 months, the country has added 150 million subscribers, and tele-density has increased from 18 per cent in 2006 to 32 per cent in November 2008. The pace of expansion will be more as the new operators start rolling their networks, he said.

On new initiatives, he said, the mobile number portability, which allowed users to keep the mobile number after changing the service provider was likely to be implemented in metros and A category circles by middle 2009 and in the entire country by end 2009.

[Honest 836]

GSM user base sees marginal dip in growth

Business Line l 11 Dec l New Delhi

GSM mobile operators added 7.62 million new subscribers in November compared with 7.67 million in the previous month, according to data released by Cellular Operators Association of India.

The dip in growth is primarily due to Aircel, which added only 7.1 lakh new mobile users in November compared with 7.8 lakh in October.

Vodafone Essar got 2.06 million new subscribers compared with 2.07 million last month. Bharti Airtel’s growth rate has remained flat at 2.72 million new users. State-owned BSNL moved up by 6.7 lakh subscribers.

The total GSM mobile subscriber base is now at 249.3 million. Bharti Airtel has a 33 per cent market share with 82.9 million subscribers followed by Vodafone Essar with 58.7 million mobile users. BSNL has 16.2 per cent share with 40.4 million subscribers.

[Honest 836]

Reliance adds 1.77 million new telecom subscribers in Nov

Economic Times l 13 Dec l Mumbai

Reliance Communications added 1.77 million new mobile phone subscribers in November, taking its total user base to 59.57 million, a company spokesman said on Saturday.

Reliance Communications is the number two operator in the market of more than 320 million mobile users.

[Honest 836]

Telecom sector growth rate slips 1.08 pc

Press Trust of India l 29 Dec l New Delhi

The country's telecom sector which boasted bypassing the recessionary trend to chart growth saw a 1.08 per cent dip in new telephone connections in the month of November, according to official data released here on Monday.

Altogether 10.18 million telephone connections (wireline and wireless) were added in November, as compared to 10.29 million connections in October, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said in a statement.

India has been the fastest growing telecom market which was adding over nine million new subscribers each month.

The last time when the sector had witnessed a fall in subscriber base was in April.

"This is a marginal dip, it's not alarming ," a TRAI official said adding that addition of 10 million plus subscribers every month is quiet exorbitant and difficult to sustain.

The total number of telephone connections reached 374.13 million at the end of November 2008 as compared to 363.95 million in October 2008.

With this growth, the overall tele-density has reached 32.34 per cent at the end of November 2008 as against 31.50 per cent in October 2008.

The total wireless subscribers (GSM, CDMA & WLL(F)) base stood at 336.08 million at the end of November 2008.

[SUDYEcaZ 67]

Business Standard

Mumbai February 13, 2009, 20:32 IST

Reliance Communications Ltd, India's no 2 mobile telecoms firm, on Friday said it added a record 5 million new subscribers in January, boosted by the launch of services on the GSM platform.

Reliance, which has most of its users using rival CDMA technology, launched nationwide GSM-based services in January.

This is one of the largest subscriber additions by a single company, and is more than half of the 9.3 million subscribers added by the other GSM operators during the month.

“RCom is indeed glad to see such a tremendous response by the Indian telecom consumers, which has been instrumental in redefining the dynamics of the sector and achieving a record new subscriber addition of 5 million. This significant achievement shows that almost one out of every two customers is choosing Reliance Mobile over other options,” RCom President (Personal Business) S P Shukla said.

However, the company did not provide the split of customers added on GSM and CDMA networks.

“On a per month basis, the net additions are quite large. This is definitely the largest net additions per month by any operator in the country. The additions came from the attractive GSM schemes launched by the company,” Suresh A Mahadevan, Head of India Research, UBS Investment Bank said.

When asked whether the company would be able sustain this after the schemes end after a 90-day period, he said: “It depends on what the company intends to do after the scheme expires.”

The other GSM operators, including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone-Essar and Idea Cellular among others have added around 9.3 million subscribers during the month. BPL Mobile’s subscriber base crossed 2 million during the month.

RCom had launched its GSM services in January 2009 across 14 circles the country, under Reliance Mobile brand. The company had earlier launched GSM services in eight north eastern circles, operated under Reliance Telecom.

The GSM launch was after the company was allocated GSM spectrum earlier last year, and was under ‘crossover’ or ‘dual technology’ mode. RCom now offers pan-India service both on CDMA and GSM.

Edited February 13, 2009 by Honest
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