Despite of a strong penetration of mobile handsets, the telephone subscriber base is still growing in India. According to a recent report, the total telephone subscriber base was 926.5 million till the end of December last year, up 19.5 million from 907 million at the end of September in the same year. The report also stated that the telephone subscriber base grew by 17.69% during July-September quarter of the last year over the same quarter a year before, while quarter-over-quarter (during October-December 2011) growth was 2.16%. The telephone subscriber base had grown 2.36% in quarter ending September last year compare to the same quarter in the prior year.
According to a market research agency “Gartner”, India has just 51% mobile penetration, which is quite low compare to 75% tele-density, estimated by TRAI. Gartner has also reported that only 9% mobile users grew in India last year, reached to 638 million (63.8 crore) till the end of last year. However, TRAI promulgated 903.72 million mobile subscribers in January this year.
Clearly, there is huge discrepancy in the mobile subscribers’ base–provided by TRAI and Gartner. However, the data reported by TRAI depends on the subscribers declarations made by the mobile operators across the country, whereas, Gartner has independently gathered all these stats.
According to a recent report from GSMA, 3G connections in India are expected to grow more than 100 million by 2014, and also, it will be second largest global mobile broadband market by 2016. In addition to these, India wil be the largest HSPA connection market worldwide by 2012, followed by China, Japan and the U.S.
It’s pretty clear that India is going to be bullish in the coming years in the era of mobile subscriber base, mobile broadband consumption and telephone connections. Besides, the penetration of Smartphone is also augmenting with galloping swift in India year-over-year, 11 million new Smartphones connections in India last year. Thanks to cheap Android powered Smartphones and low-priced Tablets like Aakash, which have outburst the data consumption on mobile devices in India.
