Reliance Info Targets 10-mn User Base

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http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/859290.cms

NEW DELHI: Reliance Infocomm expects its phone subscriber base to rise to 10 million by "early 2005" from 8.69 million now as it rolls out services in 3,900 new towns and cities, a top official said on Tuesday.

Kamal Nanavaty, head of Reliance's wireless business, said on the sidelines of a news conference its phone services would be available in 5,000 Indian towns and cities by the end of this business year to the end of March from 1,100 now.

Reliance Infocomm, 45-per cent-owned by petrochemicals giant Reliance Industries, is India's largest mobile phone operator, offering services based on code division multiple access (CDMA) technology.

It competes with firms offering wireless phone services based on the global system for mobile (GSM) communication platform, such as Bharti Tele-Ventures and the Indian mobile unit of Hong Kong's Hutchison Whampoa.

Reliance's current subscriber base includes 7.83 million mobile users, 13,747 wireline and 845,312 fixed-wireless phones.

"The growth of your subscriber base is really a function of how quickly you roll out services and we hope to speed up the number of subscriber additions a month," Nanavaty said.

Indian mobile service carriers signed up 1.66 million new customers in August, taking the overall user base to 41.66 million in the world's fastest-growing mobile phone market. This included 32.02 million GSM users.

The industry has been adding somewhere around 1.5 million new subscribers a month recently, helped by some of the cheapest call rates in the world.

In December 2002, when it launched services, Reliance Infocomm had committed to invest Rs 25,000 crore ($5.5 billion) over five years in the telecom business.

Company officials said Reliance had already invested Rs 15,000 crore in rolling out services across the country and laying a nationwide optic fibre cable network.

They said Reliance Infocomm was posting cash profits and expected to post a net profit in 2005/06 (April-March).