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India's mobile users grow to near 36 M in May
By siliconindia
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Wednesday, 09 June 2004, 19:30 IST
NEW DELHI: Indian mobile companies, who operate in the world's fastest-growing major wireless market, added 1.29 million new customers in May, data from industry bodies showed on Tuesday.
The total grew to 35.87 million, though monthly additions are tapering off as carriers face constraints on network expansion in under-penetrated rural areas, analysts say.
The Cellular Operators' Association, representing nine firms who provide mobile services based on the GSM (Global System of Mobile Communications) platform, said 979,256 customers signed up in May, boosting the user base to 28.15 million subscribers.
The rival Association of Basic Operators, representing five companies selling mobile services based on CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) technology, said 307,854 users opted for them. Their customer base grew to 7.72 million customers.
About 1.25 million users entered the mobile sector in April compared with 1.9 million the previous month and 1.63 million in February, indicating a slowing of growth in the sector.
But analysts say subscriber growth will pick up in the coming months as leading operators such as Reliance Infocomm Ltd, Bharti Tele-Ventures Ltd and the Tata group are in the process of extending their reach.
Bombay-based Reliance Infocomm, 45-per cent-owned by Reliance Industries Ltd , is India's largest CDMA-based mobile services provider with 7.01 million users.
It competes with GSM-firm Bharti, 28-per cent-owned by Singapore Telecommunications Ltd, which has 7.34 million customers.
The industry is expected to have more than 100 million users by 2005 as one of the lowest call rates in the world attracts customers to the under-penetrated market. Only three Indians out of a hundred own a mobile, compared with 20 per cent in China.