As GSM service providers sought to increase their sales at the end of the fiscal year, India’s total GSM subscriber base reached 288.3 Million in FY 2008-09.
As per the data released by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), the total number of GSM subscriptions in India reached 288.3 Million in the recently ended fiscal, with an addition of 10.84 Million new subscribers in March 2009, as reported by Business Standard.
The figures released were excluding the subscriptions recorded by Reliance Communications, the CDMA service provider which has recently launched its GSM services, as the Company did not disclose its GSM numbers separately. On adding estimated 2.5-2.7 Million GSM subscribers for Reliance Communications, the overall increase for GSM subscribers will reach 13.54 Million.
As a result, the Indian GSM subscriptions are growing at over twice the monthly growth rate of China whose GSM subscribers are increasing by 6 Million every month. However, with more than 600 Million mobile users, China is still far ahead of India as far as mobile subscriber base is concerned.
By adding 2.84 Million new GSM subscribers, Vodafone Essar Ltd took its subscriber base to a total of 68.7 Million and thereby, recorded the highest month-on-month increase in subscriber base in March 2009 among all the GSM service providers.
The number of mobile users in India surged amid gloomy economic conditions and this is due to the efforts of companies trying to increase the sales at the end of the fiscal year. Also, more number of days in March resulted in the addition of higher number of subscribers during the month.
The industry experts believe that fiscal year 2009-10 will witness monthly incremental growth of 14-15 Million subscribers. In addition, mobile penetration is anticipated to increase to 50% from the current level of 35% by the end of 2009-10.
Besides, the COAI has projected that there will be nearly 500 Million GSM subscribers in India by the end of the current fiscal year while the figure will cross the 800 Million mark by 2012.
According to a Research Analyst at RNCOS, “In March 2009, India witnessed the highest ever monthly increase in the number of GSM subscriber base. The country has immense potential for future growth in the mobile industry as the mobile penetration currently stands at 35%. Moreover, lower prices of handsets and reduction in tariff plans will drive the anticipated growth in coming times. The Indian rural region will certainly see strong growth in future.”
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