As per the latest TRAI reports, the Indian telecom sector added a record breaking 15 million subscribers in January. This is a global record for any telecom market in such bad economic conditions indicating that the world’s fastest growing telecom market has remained untouched by the global economic slowdown.
Reports also state that the country’s 362.3 million mobile connections now account for close to 91% of India’s total telephone base. Enormous growth in the mobile market has led to push the country’s teledensity to 34.5%, which means that there are 35 phone connections for every 100 people in India.
Some factors which led to this momentum:
- Expansion by telecom operators to smaller towns and villages
- Cheap call rates – which are lowest in the world
- GSM launch by RCom – Reliance Communications launched GSM services in January with a very aggressive pricing strategy, this enabled RCom to account for one third of the total subscribers added by the industry in January
With India averaging near to 10 million new telecom connections every month, even MNC’s like telecom equipment vendor Ericsson have stared stating that the Indian telecom market is on par with developed markets like the US and China and will surpass them in some months.
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