India's mobile operators activated nearly 18 million new lines in November, taking the total well over 500 million

December 24, 2009

3 Min Read
India Passes 500M Mobile Mark

India's mobile operators activated a staggering 17.65 million new lines during November to take the country's total to just more than 506 million, according to new data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) .

The figures suggest there's plenty of near-term growth left in the Indian mobile market, as the number of new lines still seems to be growing month on month. In October, the mobile population grew by 16.7 million, while in September it increased by nearly 15 million.

Including the country's 37.2 million fixed lines, India now has 543.2 million phone lines, giving it a teledensity of 46.32 percent, meaning there's still plenty of room left for growth, mostly in the country's populous rural areas.

It's not all good news for the Indian mobile market, though. Increasing competition is squeezing the tariffs and margins of incumbent and new entrants alike, while plans to introduce 3G services and mobile number portability (MNP) are in familiar disarray. (See Asia Watch: India 3G Update.)

Plans to introduce MNP from the beginning of 2010 -- see AsiaWatch: What Price India's Mobile Market? and AsiaWatch: India Preps Number Portability -- have suffered a late setback, with April 2010 now looking like the earliest date, according to the Economic Times.

Tata gains ground on Idea
Once again, Tata Teleservices Ltd. signed up the most new customers, adding 3.3 million during November to take its total mobile subscriber base to 54 million. It's now only 1.9 million behind Idea Cellular Ltd. , which also had a good growth month, adding 2.5 million new lines. (See table below.)

Table 1: India's Mobile Operators by Subscribers, November 2009

October 2009

November 2009

Additions during November

Bharti Airtel

113.2 million

116 million

2.8 million

Reliance Communications

88.2 million

91 million

2.8 million

Vodafone Essar

85.8 million

88.6 million

2.8 million

BSNL

59.4 million

60.8 million

1.4 million

Idea Cellular

53.4 million

55.9 million

2.5 million

Tata Teleservices

50.7 million

54 million

3.3 million

Aircel

27.7 million

29.4 million

1.7 million

MTNL

4.74 million

4.82 million

0.08 million

Loop Telecom

2.55 million

2.6 million

0.05 million

Sistema Shyam

2.3 million

2.65 million

0.35 million

HFCL Infotel

0.37 million

0.34 million

(0.03 million)

Total mobile lines activated

488.4 million

506 million

17.6 million

Source: TRAI





Both are still a long way behind the big three: Market leader Bharti Airtel Ltd. (Mumbai: BHARTIARTL), still the only operator with more than 100 million mobile customers, and close rivals Reliance Communications Ltd. and Vodafone India .

Reliance appears to be preparing for a growth spurt. It's planning major investments (worth about US$1.35 billion) in its mobile and enterprise services infrastructure during the coming year as part of a plan dubbed "Edge 2010," according to India's Business Standard.

— Ray Le Maistre, International News Editor, Light Reading

Subscribe and receive the latest news from the industry.
Join 62,000+ members. Yes it's completely free.

You May Also Like