Indian telecom sector poised for further growth in 2007
Monday, 25 December 2006, 18:30 IST
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New Delhi: India's telecom sector, which has witnessed an exponential growth of 50 percent this year, is poised for further development in the coming year. With the government setting up the target of 250 million phones by Dec 2007, teledensity of the country is set to increase to 22 percent from the current 16.28 percent, said a statement by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT). "The total number of telephones has increased from 125.79 million as on Dec 31, 2005 to 183.46 million as on Nov 30, 2006 and the share of wireless phones has increased from 68 percent in December 2005 to 78 percent in November 2006," said the release. During the year India surpassed the target of 100 million GSM mobile subscribers thus becoming the fifth country to achieve this benchmark after China, USA, Japan and Russia. "Under Bharat Nirman Program, out of 66,822 villages, a total of 36,014 village public telephones (VPTs) have been provided as on Oct 31. The rest of the villages will be covered well ahead of Nov 2007," the DoT said. According to the DoT, 14,183 villages will be covered with telephony using the digital satellite phone terminals (DSPT) technology using the Indian satellite band frequency, the procurement of which is underway. Indian telecom sector's phenomenal growth has also been boosted the confidence of some of the world's renowned telecom companies, which are eager to set up their manufacturing bases here. "Major companies like Foxconn, Aspcomomp, and Solectron have decided to set up their manufacturing bases in India. In the telecom manufacturing itself, there has been a commitment of more than $1.5 billion," the release said. "It is also expected that fresh commitments of about $2 billion in the next one year or so in the telecom manufacturing." Finnish handset major Nokia set up is manufacturing facility in Chennai along with LG Electronics which has set up its base in Pune. Ericsson recently launched their R&D center in Chennai and Motorola, which also set its unit with an investment of over $100 million, will soon start production from the first quarter of 2007. A large number of companies like Alcatel, Cisco have also shown interest in setting up their R&D centers in India, the DoT said.
Source: IANS
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